The Fibre Channel storage environment was one of the primary markets for the Xserve.  Mac OS X Server can provide filesharing, directory, DNS, email, calendar and other network services but many of those tasks are easily handled by a Mac mini. But Fibre Channel SANs are different because they require add-in Fibre Channel HBA cards that don’t fit in a Mac mini, but do work in an Xserve.

In an Xsan environment, all clients are connected to the Fibre Channel switch fabric and have direct block-level access to the filesystem on the storage array. For example, several video editors could directly access the same massive Final Cut project stored on a huge storage array using high-speed Fibre Channel connections. The Xserve metadata controller (MDC) acts as a traffic cop to make sure that two of those video editors do not try to modify the same file at the same time. The whole system is much faster than relying on Ethernet speeds on a network file server, but also much more expensive. Many media and creative shops have a huge investment in the storage arrays and the associated Fibre Channel infrastructure to connect them to their editing workstations. The death of the Xserve was unnerving because Xsan won’t work without a Mac-based MDC.

It’s possible to enlist a Mac Pro as an MDC, but the advantage of the Xserve was that it provided a convenient form factor that saved space in a rack loaded with storage arrays. The new ActiveSAN appliance can replace an Xserve MDC with the same rack mount form factor. Perhaps more important than the convenience of replacing the same 1U rack space, is that IT directors can now rest assured that their investment in the Xsan environment will not be lost even if the Xserve itself cannot be replaced.

The management suite includes the ActiveSAN appliances, the ActiveRAID storage array, and Innerpool metadata appliances which will provide a simple administrative utility that is meant to be accessible to creative professionals that sometimes provide their own IT support. Active Storage has a training program in place that will include online, self-paced education as well as instructor-led training at Active Storage facilities. Xsan consultants and instructors are also being enlisted to provide on-site training and installation for companies that select ActiveSAN.

While many will never need Fibre Channel storage, ActiveSAN is a great solution for those that have heavily invested in Xsan and want the confidence of being able to replace Xserve MDCs as needed.

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2010: A Predominantly Mobile Year

Before introducing the iPad at the Apple event in January, Steve Jobs defined Apple as a “mobile devices company.” According to Jobs, Apple made more money on mobile devices (including iPods, iPhones, and MacBooks) than companies like Sony, Samsung, and Nokia did on their portable products. For the fiscal year ending in September, that trend continued.

Net sales for Apple were just over $65 billion, of which approximately $50 billion was divided among four portable product lines, with $6 billion going to Mac desktops. Since the iPad was only available for seven months in FY 2010, the Mac desktop will likely be last among Apple’s top hardware earners in 2011.

Notebook vs. Desktop Trends

That doesn’t mean the Mac desktop isn’t earning money. After a disastrous year in 2009, which saw a 23 percent decline in net sales, Mac desktop sales rebounded in 2010, up 18 percent. The problem is, Mac laptops were up 43 percent in net sales for 2010, and that was on top of a 9 percent increase in 2009.

Looking at Mac unit sales puts the net sales into perspective. While laptops started taking off in 2006, desktop sales have seen fluctuations, and even declines, though 2010 was a big rebound year. Nonetheless, Mac laptops represent a strong growth curve for Apple, which, as with the rest of the PC industry, has come at the expense of desktop sales.

Over the last 10 years, Mac notebooks and desktops have more or less switched positions in unit sales. In 2001, 7 out of 10 Macs sold were desktops. In 2009, the reverse was true. For 2010, strong iMac sales pushed the ratio back down to “only” two out of three Macs in favor of notebooks. With the introduction of the new MacBook Air, consumer dollars will swing even more towards the laptop, if analyst expectations prove accurate.

The State of the Desktop

The question then becomes: At what point do individual Mac desktop products reach a point of diminishing sales returns for Apple? The simple answer is that iMacs are safe in the short term. While Apple hasn’t broken out sales numbers for individual desktops since 2005, back then, the iMac accounted for about two-thirds of Mac desktop sales. Since then, comments in Apple conference calls reference only “strong sales” of the iMac, if desktops are mentioned at all, so the iMac’s role in the desktop picture has likely grown stronger still.

As for the Mac Pro and the Mac mini, a lot will depend on whether Apple continues to develop OS X Server. With the demise of the Xserve, Apple is showing it doesn’t really have that much interest in the enterprise back end. Exiting the server software business might make IT enthusiasts recoil, but Apple remains a consumer-focused business. It’s not going to happen next year, but Apple is clearly gearing itself towards a time when the “mobile device company” descriptor is entirely accurate.

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Apple does assure customers that any Xserve already sold up until that day will be fully supported, however. So your warranties, AppleCare, etc. will all be taken care of. And for those customers concerned about not being able to use OS X to run their servers, Apple has some “transition options,” which it details in a .PDF released specifically to address the Xserve end-0f-life.

Cupertino offers either the Mac Pro or the Mac mini as viable alternatives for use as servers, when installed with Snow Leopard Server. In the document, Apple describes the advantages of each alternate setup, and even provides comparative performance benchmarks. The Mac Pro, it maintains, is more powerful than the Xserve, though it doesn’t support rack mounting, obviously, and it also draws more power.

The Mac mini, on the other hand, is laughably underpowered compared to the Xserve, though it can be made to work with server racks via third-party hardware brackets. And, it’s much much cheaper, obviously. Apple also points out that mini is in fact currently Apple’s most popular server option.

Xserve’s demise will probably come as a disappointment to a few dedicated enterprise and small business customers, but it’ll free up resources and time that Apple can then devote to its continued consumer market expansion. I certainly won’t miss it. Will you?

UPDATE: Apple now offers a “Server” configuration of its Mac Pro desktop, which includes one 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor, 8GB of RAM, two 1TB hard drives and an ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics card with 1GB of dedicated RAM. It also comes with an unlimited-client license of Mac OS X Server.

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January 2010 will mark the four-year anniversary of Apple’s first Intel-based Mac, the MacBook Pro. With Snow Leopard officially dropping support for PowerPC Macs and the next version of iLife and iWork likely to do the same, a perfect storm is brewing where Apple can begin to really push OS X to maximize the potential of the Intel hardware it supports. 2010 looks to be a big year in terms of hardware updates from Apple; here’s our roundup of predictions on what’s to come.

MacBook Pro

Just like where it started four years ago with the first Intel Mac, the biggest and most exciting updates will happen to the MacBook Pro. The good news? With the classic MacBook seeing updates recently that peg its specs a little too close for comfort with its older brother, the new MacBook Pro update should arrive sooner rather than later.

In terms of processors, I predict Apple will adopt the mobile variant of the Core i5 and Core i7 quad-core processors currently found in the latest iMacs. Though these mobile variants, also referred to by their codename Arrandale, only feature two cores, they also come laden with Intel’s better-than-previously-integrated-but-not-quite-as-good-as-a-standalone graphics chipset. Rumor has it that Apple isn’t a fan of this implementation (as right it shouldn’t be, desiring a dedicated professional graphics card for its high-end portable). How this will shake out is still a mystery.

For the past three years, Apple has followed a steady trend of doubling both the entry-level amount of RAM and the maximum RAM that its high end portables can support. It’s a great tactic on Apple’s part as it combats only incremental performance gains with every new processor release. 2010 should be no different, with standard models of MacBook Pros shipping with 8GB of RAM with a ceiling of 16GB.

The big news for the MacBook Pros will be the inclusion of the first Blu-ray drive. It’s been a long time coming but Apple is ready to go for it and ready to do it right. Blu-ray Superdrives will be available as an option (if not standard) on the 15” and 17” MacBook Pros.

Taking advantage of the brilliant resolution of Blu-ray, the 15” MacBook Pro will also feature a gorgeous 1920 x 1080 resolution display, packing the same number of pixels as the new 21.5-inch iMac and the current 17” MacBook Pro. Of course, this also means the 17” will get a display bump as well. 2560 x 1440 seems like a bit of a stretch, but one can always hope, right?

In regards to storage, I predict we’ll see MacBook Pros starting with 500GB hard drives on the low-end 13” model and maxing out at 1TB or 1.5TB hard drives on the high-end 17” model. Before the year is out, the high-end models might even have an option for a 2TB drive.

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air, due to it’s ultra slim and lightweight profile, will only see modest updates in 2010. Processors will be bumped to 2.26GHz and 2.53GHz (up from 1.86GHz and 2.13GHz). Hard drives on the portable will see modest size increases to 250GB SATA and 256GB solid-state drives. The next iteration of the MacBook Air will also ship with 4GB of RAM standard. Though it will be difficult for Apple to upgrade the processors, hard drives and RAM while still maintaining a profit, the price point of the MacBook Air is in a sweet spot at the moment that Apple doesn’t want to disrupt.

As a completely outlandish prediction, I predict that Apple will also release a standalone external USB Blu-ray drive for MacBook Air users and legacy users who wouldn’t mind the accessory. Price point? I’m betting $299.

MacBook

Everyone’s favorite little portable recently saw an overhaul just a few months ago. For 2010, the MacBook specs will tend towards the current MacBook Pro offerings. Standard RAM will increase to 4GB (though this may remain the max for this model) and the portable will ship with either a 320GB or 500GB hard drive as standard.

Mac mini

The Mac mini will likely see modest processor increases (2.53GHz on the entry-level and 2.6GHz on the high-end) as well as 4GB RAM and 320GB hard drives standard. Build to order options will include 1TB drives and the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server will ship with two 1TB drives. I also predict that Blu-ray drives will be a build-to-order option as Apple is starting to recognize the importance of the Mac mini in the living room as a more robust alternative to the Apple TV.

iMac

The iMac saw a nice update in 2009 that shifted the aspect ratio of the displays from the Apple-familiar 16:10 to the more HD-familiar 16:9. As such, the entry-level iMac is capable of displaying 1080p video, if only there were a source to play it. Similar to the MacBook Pros, I also predict the iMacs will receive built-in Blu-ray drives on the high-end models, if not standard across the entire line. The iMacs will also see a shift towards the quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 chips reaching clockspeeds similar to the current Core 2 Duo iMacs (a little over 3GHz). A subsequent update later in the year could bring about even faster processors in the neighborhood of 3.2GHz to 3.5GHz. 8GB of RAM will become standard on these Macs with the ability to upgrade to 16GB if desired.

Mac Pro & Xserve

There is still life left in the Nehalem architecture as the Core i9 “Gulftown” processor will make its debut in these high-end Macs at some point next year. Manufactured on a highly efficient 32nm die, this six core processor will boost a clock speed of around 2.8GHz and outfit the Mac in both single and dual processor varieties. This essential “12-core” MacPro or Xserve will feature 8-10GB of RAM as standard and a maximum ceiling of 64GB of RAM. You don’t have to take my word for it though, just start saving pennies now.

The Elusive iTablet

And saving the best for last, we arrive at the iTablet. While many constantly peg Apple’s unreleased tablet as occupying the space between the iPod touch and the MacBook, I predict it is between the iPod touch and MacBook of 2010, not 2009. As such, I predict the iTablet to function like a Mac and run OS X. I predict the tablet to utilize an Intel Core 2 Duo processor around the 2GHz mark. Personally, I feel Apple will disappoint many if the device functions more like an iPhone (in terms of hardware specs, besting out the 3GS 600MHz processor with 256MB of RAM). While I wouldn’t expect the tablet to function as a workstation for heavy video rendering, Apple has shown a history of utilizing hardware that can pack a punch and really maximize the OS. I predict the tablet will feature between a 7” and 10” screen (personally I’m leaning towards the latter, despite rumor sites). The iTablet will also feature support for 802.11n for fast streaming of content like iTunes Extras across your local network, support for Screen Sharing for remotely administering other Macs and the ability to connect to an external display through a micro-DisplayPort connector. I also feel the iTablet will ship in two versions, differentiated by storage size (like every other Apple product ever) and feature a solid state drive like the iPhone and iPod touch. Though the iTablet may not feature a screen with high enough resolution for HD, I do believe it will support playback of HD video through an appropriate video out connector.

What’s Left?

Rumors of Intel and Apple co-developing LightPeak technology are becoming more commonplace and I predict we’ll see some announcement related to this in 2010. This high-speed optical connection might be essential to products like the iTablet that would benefit from its singular connection for power, data transfer, and HD video output. Or perhaps the technology could become employed in MacBook Pros, allowing use of one LightPeak connection to an iMac that provides power to charge the laptop, video signal carried to the iMac’s display and audio carried to the iMac’s internal speakers.

The white elephant still remaining in the room is of course Apple’s Display lineup. With a 24” LED display and a 30” display that barely beats the resolution of Apple’s new 27” iMac, I predict Apple will definitely be refreshing its display lineup. In particular, I expect the price of the 24” LED Cinema Display to drop to $699 and a new 27” LED Cinema Display, matching the same resolution as the iMac (remember, it’s 16:9, not 16:10) to arrive at $1299. I also predict Apple will introduce a new, high-end 32” LED display at $1799, the price point of the current 30” display.

All of these predictions are merely speculation, based on Apple’s history, rumor sites and published roadmaps from companies that Apple sources components from. While this article solely represents my opinion of what could be around the corner in 2010, I’d love to hear what you think or would like to see. Share a comment or two with your thoughts!

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The Mac Pro got a new option in the processor customization department, a 3.33GHz quad-core Intel Xeon processor for an additional $1,200. As of yet, there’s no option to double up the 3.33GHz version of the quad-core to create a more powerful 8-core machine on the more expensive configuration of the Mac Pro.

You can also now outfit your Mac Pro with 2TB hard drives, instead of the 1TB option at which capacity previously maxed out. That means the official total capacity of the Mac Pro, as configured in the Apple Store, is now 8TB, which is nothing to sneeze at. Each 2TB drive will set you back $550.

The only reason to hesitate if you’re thinking about picking up a Mac Pro is that the last time they were updated was back in March 2009. Chances are another major upgrade isn’t too far around the corner, possibly involving Intel’s forthcoming i9 processor, so if you can wait, you probably should.

The configuration options for the Xserve were also updated, allowing for use of the same 2TB drives that are now available to the Mac Pros. That means max capacity for the Xserve is now 6TB. RAM options also got upgraded, with 4GB modules now available, so that the max configurable memory is now 24GB on the quad-core Xserve, and 48GB on the 8-core.

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Active Storage was born out of Apple’s decision to discontinue the Xserve RAID. Alex Grossman, CEO of Active Storage, and the other founders were previously executives in the Servers and Storage products group at Apple, Inc. They left to form their own company that would produce storage solutions of the same quality. While Apple has been pitching the Promise VTrack RAID as a replacement solution, Active Storage has developed its XRAID product line to be a lot more Mac-like with brilliant Mac-native management software. This is high-end gear for serious business — fibre-channel, redundant controllers, redundant power supplies, redundant cooling, etc — with an emphasis on performance. The XRAID comes in two flavors, the original XRAID with 16TB capacity expandable to 32TB and the XRAID ES with 4TB, expandable to 16TB.

All of this power is wrapped in a sexy package that feels very Apple like. The folks at Active Storage have put a lot of care into building enclosures with no sharp edges, tapered screws that sit flush with the chassis, thick gauge aluminum, and slick handles on the drive sleds that pop out with a light touch. I had a chance to take a look at the XRAID at Macworld Expo in January and the build quality on these units is astounding. Having been in a data center or two in my life, finding a polished product where attention has been given to every detail to make it simple to access from both the front and the back of the rack is a real joy. One of the coolest pieces is an iPhone monitoring app that gives you all the details you could want on how the XRAID is performing even when you are not near the data center. This is definitely a storage solution fit for a Mac.

The extreme ease of use in a Mac environment has made Active Storage popular in the entertainment crowd. When asked to explain further, Mr. Grossman explained that, “You may not know this because you aren’t in working with these systems every day, but feature-length movie production requires 50 to 100TB of storage. And that need doesn’t go away when the movie is finished either. There is a need for long-term archival storage as well. And it doesn’t always make sense to use tape backup, so disk-to-disk archiving is growing.”

Final Cut has made the Mac platform a common choice for film editing with some feature films like King Kong being composited and edited entirely on Macs. With the advent of HD, the storage needs for films are growing astronomically. Active Storage appears to be positioned to take advantage of that trend. It makes a great hardware solution in conjunction with Apple products like the Xserve, Final Cut Server, and Xsan 2.

The company currently has about 25 employees, but about 50 open positions on its web site. It is obviously looking to grow substantially in 2010, especially with this capital available to fund hiring and product development.

It is great news to see a well-respected investment fund like Intel Capital place bets on the Mac market, especially in a company that is focused on enterprise-class solutions for the Mac.

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There are two base models of Xserve available. The lower-priced server at $2,999 comes with a single 2.26 GHz Quad-core processor, 3 GB of RAM, one 160GB 7200-rpm SATA drive, and Mac OS X Server 10.5 Unlimited Client edition. The second model, priced at $3,599, gives you eight cores of processor power with two 2.26 GHz Quad-core “Nehalem” chips. Upgrade options include 2.66 and 2.93 GHz versions of the processor, up to 24 GB of RAM, and up to 3 hard drives with a max capacity of 1 terabyte. You can also optionally add-on a 128 GB SSD that won’t occupy any of your drive bays and will be configured as the Xserve’s boot disk, which is quite the handy (though somewhat expensive) option.

Apple is also hoping to improve their green image with the latest Xserve, which it claims is 89 percent more energy efficient measured by performance per watt compared to the model it replaces. They also tout the PVC-free construction of the Xserve body. And thanks to a new feature that puts processor cores into low-power mode when not in use, the Xserve also boasts a 19 percent reduction in power consumption when idle.

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Wednesday at Macworld Expo marked a distinct change from the hectic activity around the keynote and the open of the show floor. The big news today was the announcement of the Best of Show awards from Macworld. The products recognized this year are…

Best of Macworld 2009

• iPhoto ’09
• Cisco WebEx Meeting Center
• Things
• Ecamm Network BT-1 Bluetooth Web Cam
• Filemaker Pro 10
• HP MediaSmart Server
• Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
• Daylite Touch
• Sling Media SlingPlayer for iPhone

Our Impressions

iPhoto ’09 is a great upgrade and worthy of the attention, despite the appearance of Google’s Picassa for Mac as a possible competitor. We love Things around here, and quite a few of us actually use it to try and stay on top of, well, things. We introduced you to the Ecamm Bluetooth Web Cam on Monday. Filemaker Pro 10 is a nice update. I talked to a few developers today that are looking forward to the new scripting features, but the UI overhaul is just something that’s long overdue. Daylite Touch really redefines what an iPhone app is capable of doing. We had a chance to talk with Marketcircle yesterday and will share our impressions of using the app soon. One thing I can let slip now, this is definitely not going to be a $.99 app store purchase. Daylite Touch is a full-featured app that rivals what you can do with a desktop app and you should expect it to be priced accordingly.

The Rest of the Best

The HP MediaSmart Server is a really interesting solution for home users that want to store and share media. SlingPlayer is very cool and something to keep an eye on as soon as it gets released to the app store this quarter. We’ll bring you more info on that announcement soon, along with some details on the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen, and Cisco WebEx Meeting Center.

Other Announcements

If you’ve been wondering what happened to the Xserve RAID team after that product was discontinued, several of them have resurfaced at startup Active Storage. I had a chance to talk with Alex Grossman on Wednesday and I am very impressed with the attention to detail, and the particular attention to the needs of Mac users, that Active Storage has put into their products. If you are looking for high-density storage solutions that you can easily manage from the Mac, you may not need to look any further than Active Storage.

Intelliscanner has a new update to their SoHo and Mini scanners. If one of your New Year’s resolutions was to get organized and catalog stuff around your house, you’ll love this little scanners and the accompanying software.

Axiotron recruited Steve Wozniak to demo their new Modbook Pro this week. The Modbook Pro, as the name suggest, is based on the MacBook Pro system just as the Modbook is based on the Apple MacBook.

Ambrosia, one of my favorite developers, is announcing iToner 2 and WireTap Studio 1.0.7 this week. iToner 2 adds three new features: ClearTone to help get the audio levels right so your ringtones always sound great on the iPhone, cropping tools to edit snippets right in iToner, and 40+ professionally mastered ringtones that you can use right out of the box. WireTap Studio has been updated to improve performance and add some new control schemes .

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With more and more web applications being built by Mac-addicted developers, I thought I’d have a chat with Stephen Caudill over at FatJam. Stephen not only codes his creations on Apple hardware but also relies on it to serve up the applications to the public.

Travis Vocino for The Apple Blog: Hey there Stephen! To me, it feels like the Mac, and specifically the MacBook Pro, is the web developer’s absolute choice when it comes to deploying an environment suited to the work. It definitely hasn’t always been that way though, as you know. What about you? What’s your history with developing for the web on Apple hardware?

Stephen Caudill for FatJam: In August of 2004, I started looking at the programming language Ruby, in response to the philosophy of “developer joy” that Ruby on Rails’ creator, David Heinemeier Hansson was extolling. At the time I was working in Big Java and really just hated it… the job, the tools, the verbosity of the language were all a millstone around my neck and I wanted this golden path that David was describing.

In and amongst the various doctrines of Ruby on Rails was this devout love of the Mac computer that I kept being inundated with. Around the same time Paul Graham penned an essay in which he observed that all the smart hackers he knew were migrating to OSX… That was apparently all the coercion I needed, as I soon found myself exploring a first gen Mac Mini. In retrospect, I guess I was drinking the Koolaid, but it was good Koolaid after the sour taste Windows left in my mouth.

TV: Absolutely. In fact, these days sometimes it’s hard to find a Windows laptop at a developer’s conference — especially the more current spaces like Ruby. So, you’re really hot for Ruby these days?

SC: Definitely. It’s been revolutionary to my entire thought process, let alone my habits as a programmer. A forthcoming project I’m working on, FatJam, is a significantly large Ruby on Rails application.

TV: Can you tell me a little about FatJam?

SC: FatJam is a service that helps musicians meet and collaborate over the internet. We’ve been explained as “Match.com for musicians” and that’s pretty accurate, but only one facet of the application. To elaborate on that bit though; we use data that the user supplies about themselves, objective analysis of their usage habits on the site and automated analysis of finished music they upload to suggest other artists in the community that they’re likely to be compatible with. From there we make it very easy to form bands (the conceptual hub of our interpersonal collaboration), collaborate over distance and promote and distribute your music. We’ve just entered our limited public beta and are due to launch the full service in September.

TV: Another key point I think web developers love about Mac is the shared love for open-source software. How has using OSS technology like the Ruby on Rails framework helped you and your team build a large-scale project like FatJam?

SC: We’ve gotten a lot of benefit from Open Source technologies like Ruby, Ruby on Rails and a plethora of client libraries. Honestly, it would have taken us much longer to develop FatJam if we weren’t standing on the shoulders of these Open Source communities. As a company, we are firm believers in Open Source and we’re making a concerted effort to give something back. We’re starting out by releasing an internal library we use for versioning database records: Acts As Revisable. We’re going to continue to release other extractions from our endeavors as OSS software on github, so keep your eyes on our account.

TV: OK, let’s talk Apple nerdery. What’s your (and perhaps your developers’) setups like as far as software and hardware? How do you utilize them in your day-to-day workflow?

SC: We’re all running MacBook Pro’s as our development machines. Rich Cavanaugh (our senior architect) and I both use TextMate and Terminal.app for our primary development. Our other developer, Rogelio Samour is a recent Mac convert though and a big linux guy, so his primary development is done in Vim and iTerm.

On my rig, apps that run all day every day for me are: Textmate, Terminal, Things (LOVE this app), several Fluid.app instances (for CampFire, GitHub and LightHouse) and Twitteriffic, in addition to the usual suspects… iTunes, iChat, Mail (with all its warts) and Safari. Notable occasional use apps are Changes.app, Pixelmator (screw you Adobe), NetNewsWire, Skitch, Interarchy and of course FireFox (still the best game in town for debugging JavaScript).

As far as workflow goes, we work in a distributed fashion (I’m in North Florida, Rich is in South Florida and Rogelio is in Northwest Arkansas), so Leopard’s screen sharing capabilities have become vital for us. Using Screen Sharing, we can do pair programming and collaborative debug sessions. It’s almost as good as being in the same room. I also coordinate on a daily basis with my partners in Miami and Greece and consultants in California and less frequently with our board members, most of whom are in New York and London… keeping up with these guys makes my iPhone pretty crucial. Now, admittedly, I could be doing the same stuff on a CrackBerry, but I’d be doing it in much less style and without the super-convenient integration features that the iPhone has with my Mac life.

TV: You definitely deliver on Apple nerdery. I love getting to know how people work, what they’re using and how they use it. It speaks a lot to the real-world usefulness of an application when you can experience what someone has built using it. What about the other side — the infrastructure that actually runs and serves up FatJam?

SC: We’re running brand new 8 core Leopard servers with 16GB of RAM apiece. Our staging environment is on a single PPC Xserve running Leopard.

TV: How does using Apple hardware for server infrastructure compare to what most people are used to — generally greybox servers or Dell PowerEdge type stuff? Is the workflow different? Is the deployment easier, more difficult?

SC: Coming from a Java/Sun server background, it honestly feels pretty familiar, albeit minus some warts (and some configurability). I would guess that people who are used to running virtualized Dell PowerEdge’s would have a bit of an adjustment to make. Speaking of which, that’s one thing Apple’s server platform is screaming for: virtualization. It’ll be interesting to see how Parallels Server performs when they’re out of beta… we’ll certainly be looking closely at it.

Deploying to Apple hardware has some specific challenges, but I don’t think they’re any more difficult to deal with than a large scale deployment on any other platform. One thing I’ll give some kudos to the Leopard Server devs for is the great support that Rails enjoys in it’s server environment… mongrel_rails_persist is a super simple utility with a familiar (to a Rails dev) interface that gracefully hooks into and leverages two of my favorite Apple technologies: Launchd and Bonjour. Starting up a Rails app via mongrel_rails_persist automatically creates a launchctl instance for the app and advertises it’s presence over Bonjour, which is in turn integrated into the Apache Web Server interface in Server Admin. It’s all very slick. Beyond the simple elegance of tools like mongrel_rails_persist, it’s just a sound and performant all-around platform for running Ruby based applications from.

Workflow is really why we’re on Mac on the server though, the rest of it is icing. Specifically, we have the ability to access Apple-specific technologies for server side processes. I’m sure you can imagine the benefits that we reap from having a platform exposes sophisticated audio processing systems like QTKit and CoreAudioKit to our server side application.

TV: Plus, just looking at a rack of Xserves should make anyone giddy. In addition to server technology, I dig checking out these fabulous audio production setups that incorporate both Xserves and usually Mac Pros. Being involved with that space, do you think Macs lead the market in audio production? What tools do you or FatJam users utilize on the product end before the work gets to the site?

SC: My personal experience has been that Macs have dominated professional audio production for some time now. More generally though, it seems that many savvy users these days are gravitating toward macs because of their current level of sophistication, and this is true of much of the new breed of digital musicians I know as well. Don’t get me wrong though, I still know a ton of really talented musicians that happen to use Windows.

The jury is still out as to what tools are going to be prevalent amongst our users. We encourage people to use what they know and we’ll be actively looking at what they do use, so expect more concrete observations on that later. My gut feeling is that we’re going to attract an audience that’s disproportionately Mac-based — say 35% of our overall user base. Platform will affect tool choice to some extent, but I think we’ll see representations of all the usual suspects: Pro Tools, Logic, Acid, Fruity Loops, Reason, Digital Performer, Ableton Live, etc, etc.

My setup is currently oriented around using Reason for beat production and Pro Tools for recording analog sources (though I’m actively trying to move away from Pro Tools). I’ve been starting to tinker with Ableton Live and I love it so far… it’s a really fun, creativity-oriented interface for doing the discovery phase of production in. I’m also looking forward to devoting some time to learning Max/MSP post-beta, which is in a personal sweet spot for me at the intersection of programming and music.

TV: You mentioned that you expect Windows users, of course, but do you consider Apple-specific user apps (like iPhone apps, Dashboard widgets, straight for the desktop) to be crucial to the success of emerging sites like FatJam. I happen to think they’re quickly becoming an integral part. I actually attribute a lot of the success of Twitter to be tied to the early availability of Twitterific. What do you have currently in the works, already deployed or on the to-do list?

SC: With so much of what we consider important available over ever-present networks, it’s silly not to expose that data for consumption, in my opinion. Ubiquity of data is a goal all developers should be working toward these days, or else they’re going to miss the boat. Keeping that in mind, Apple provides some really sweet, fun-to-build-for platforms for getting at and exposing data to users, so it’s a no-brainer for us to get on board with it.

We’re currently putting the finishing touches on native Mac and Windows client apps that pair with the web service suite. We’ve got a couple of widgets in the works for Dashboard as well as Vista and Google Gadgets. As an iPhone user, I tend to think that any application that doesn’t have an iPhone interface is incomplete… so that’s definitely in the works too.

TV: Excellent stuff, Stephen. Endless thanks for sharing your Mac-addiction with me and our readers. We’ll be on the lookout for much more Apple-enabled goodness to come from you in the near future, including the launch of FatJam and your open-source contributions. Good luck!

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The servers have Intel Xeon Harpertown processors, can have up to 16 GB of RAM, and 6 TB of storage.

The really crazy thing is that Apple still has not done anything. Psystar even released an update for the 10.5.3 update to Leopard. What is Apple saying by not saying anything about this? It seems that silence is permission.

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