Apple exec posts, retracts enterprise information
We're not sure if this is good news or bad news for you Xserve enthusiasts, but given the furor over Apple discontinuing the server line, any news is probably worth hearing. Apple server product marketing manager Eric Zelenka reportedly posted a message on the Xsanity message boards saying that the Xserve announcement wouldn't "impact the future of Xsan or server software on Mac OS X." Seems like good news, right? Apple may not be selling the hardware, but they'll still be working on the software.
Or are they? Just nine hours after that message was posted, it was deleted completely. Obviously, there are a few reasons for this, and while one of them is of course that he was wrong (and Apple will be discontinuing its server software lines as well), that's not necessarily what's happening. It's just as valid an explanation that Zelenka simply got slapped on the wrist for speaking about official Apple business in unofficial channels, something that the Cupertino company definitely wouldn't like. There's also the possibility that it wasn't Zelenka at all, and finally, it's possible that Zelenka did make the statement, but later decided, for whatever reason, to just remove it. Maybe we'll see the same statement made in a more formal way elsewhere.
At any rate, server admins hungry for news about the future of Mac OS X server have to take what they can get. Apple has shown in the past that it has no compunctions at all with abandoning product lines that aren't moving, and if the Xserve was a victim of that, we'll have to wait and see if other server products make the same cut.
[via MacNN]
