My OS X wish

[Craig R. Arko]

My OS X wish is not an OS X wish at all; it's a hardware wish.

I would dearly love to see the return to the lineup of server class machines like the <Network Server> (http://mirror.apple.com/server/) 500 and 700. Something like these guys, running OS X Server in dual/quad G4/G5 configurations, would make truly kick-butt mid-range server boxes.

Anyone out there have a N.S. 500 or 700?

[xeroply]

I know Jobs isn't a big fan of cloning, but how cool would it be if Apple was to license IBM to create some high-end server Macs.

It wouldn't cannibalize Apple's existing market like the clones of old. IBM has already got experience with the PowerPC architecture and UNIX, and they've got tons of respect from IT folks. Apple might not want to give away such a high-margin market, but they're certainly not doing anything with it right now. The question is how IBM could be motivated to do it.

Of course the trick would be massaging all the low-level stuff in OS X/Darwin (KEXTs and all that) to make it work on a fairly different sort of hardware, but the microkernal abstraction is supposed to make that much easier, right?

[Craig R. Arko]

Yes, last time Apple made the hardware and IBM the OS; turnabout would be great fair play here.

Since Big Blue is offering Linux like crazy for their servers, I wonder if OS X Server could shoehorn in there somehow.