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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1375
Dell Blade Server No Match for XServe
By Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac
December 10th 2002
Dell's foray into blade market is an "antique".
Dell's new blade server, the 1655MC, wasn't worth "the time Dell expended in labor",
according to an article at c|net Asia, which compares Dell's new baby with Apple's
Xserve.
Blade servers are hot now at Dell, IBM and Sun, with each company claiming they will
outperform and replace 1U servers. Sun describes them thus:
"Blade Servers are modular, single-board computers that can increase the compute
density of a 72-inch rack by a factor of five when compared with 1U servers."
Dell sells its 1655MC for $1,600 in base spec. It's a PIII with SCSI and ethernet.
c}net Asia describes it as an 'antique' in server terms and turns to XServe to
exemplify what's really going down in the server market.
The article touts XServe's DP 1GHz CPUs, Gigabit Ethernet, three FireWire ports and
the unlimited client license that comes with OS X Server. Despite almost doubling the
Dell's price at $2,999 for the base model, c}net argues that the unlimited client
license "offsets some, if not all, of the hard dollar difference."
IBM also comes under fire for its blades, which are equipped with P4s, which earn
disappproval for their high power consumption. Both IBM and Dell claim their blades
are equipped with P4s and PIIIs respectively because each firm talked to its
customers. This, says Dell, was why it went with the PIIII.
For c}net, Dell has misjudged the market, for now, at least: "the bantam-weight 1655MC
doesn't look like it has much promise."
Analysis: We know why Dell went with the PIII: it's cheap. It's also clear Dell
doesn't spend a lot on R&D, despite the importance of the server market to Dell's
overall strategy in this critical and profitable segment.
Apple, on the other hand, clearly researched XServe properly. Many users wished for a
rack-mount OS X server, but it was still something of a surprise when it arrived. The
storage capacity of XServe at the price, plus real Unix and that unlimited client
license, are hard to beat.
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