Apple making inroads with Xserve?

[octane]

Mac OS Rumors are running an interesting article:

Apple in talks for major classified government Xserve G5 clusters? Word on the grapevine that Apple held back announcing faster Xserve G5s right away (despite having 2.2-2.4GHz+ IBM PPC 970FX processors tested and ready to roll in the new design) not only to build up stock to serve Virginia Tech and a handful of other excited private supercomputing clients -- but to gird for large deals like it is reportedly working on for multiple major government agencies. Included among these are "classified" projects; the price tags on these projects are reportedly "on orders of magnitude that would make your eyes bulge out," according to one source.

If these recent reports prove accurate, Apple would be able to catch up with demand by the general public for faster Xserves after new PowerMac supplies ramp up in the February-March timeframe. There's a long line for large-scale G5 clustering contracts -- Apple's progress in this area is ahead of even its most optimistic estimates which we detailed last September -- and each one involves many millions in revenues, so the outcome of each one can sway the timing of product introductions by weeks if not months in some cases

 

[Arden]

Make our eyes bulge, eh? Is the government discount really a massive markup or something?

 

[lurk]

I priced a top-o-the-line laptop on the government price schedules last year and the apple discount was a discount on the order of the educational one. The kicker was that the Dell they made me get was $800 more on the GSA schedule than if I had ordered it myself from the website.

I made a valiant effort for the taxpayers but the bureaucracy that mandated the dell was a bit too entrenched.

 

[ora]

In slightly related news. An interesting article over on The Register here has an FBI computer specialist saying that.

he told us that many of the computer security folks back at FBI HQ use Macs running OS X, since those machines can do just about anything: run software for Mac, Unix, or Windows, using either a GUI or the command line. And they're secure out of the box. In the field, however, they don't have as much money to spend, so they have to stretch their dollars by buying WinTel-based hardware. Are you listening, Apple? The FBI wants to buy your stuff. Talk to them!

Dave also had a great quotation for us: "If you're a bad guy and you want to frustrate law enforcement, use a Mac." Basically, police and government agencies know what to do with seized Windows machines. They can recover whatever information they want, with tools that they've used countless times. The same holds true, but to a lesser degree, for Unix-based machines. But Macs evidently stymie most law enforcement personnel. They just don't know how to recover data on them.

.

So they have to send impounded macs to the only people in North America able to deal with them: The Mounties!

Maybe some of those G5 xserves are for the G men, if so i hope they remember to install the patch to stop the DHCP vulnerability!