[BLUG] Is the future of SMB software/hardware bleak?

Apple discontinued their XServe line this week, I suspect that OS X Server is next.

While it's easy to point fingers at how generally a bad job Apple did in this area, I have to wonder whether this whole area was just viewed as a dying area of the industry in Apple's eyes in general, not worth the resources? There is an argument to be made there, I think...

There has always been a gap between consumer technology and technology designed for large business in both hardware and software. SMB seems to be about creative improvising and flirting with offerings and solutions within both industries. However, things seem to be changing.

Why would a company run a server in-house anymore when they can outsource this and use a VPS hosted elsewhere, run a web-based app/service run somewhere else, outsource services such as email to Google or the like, etc. The emergence of smart phones is surely to even further perpetuate web services as a replacement for in-house operations as companies can contemplate using cheaper devices (i.e. smartphones, the iPad, etc.) as input devices. Even services such as file backup and sharing that were traditionally done in-house seem to be trending towards the cloud.

Virtualization has also been a big part of this as it makes less and less sense to run physical machines dedicated to stuff. I can't think of any fathomable task that any small business owner would want to do that couldn't be virtualized. There is also little reason to run these VMs in-house (especially in companies that can benefit greatly from disk I/O that bests SATA)

As an Apple, Dell, or whomever looks at this market and seeing it getting smaller and smaller every day, is it not just a matter of time before we stick a fork in the idea of small companies running their own servers doing mission critical stuff? The fact that you can buy Mac Mini and Pro servers now makes me think that Apple sees a need within SMB doing very light utilitarian sort of tasks like running file backups or hosting an internal company wiki or something, in which case there really isn't much need for special hardware or software. Is this perhaps prophetic?

--
Joe Auty, NetMusician
NetMusician helps musicians, bands and artists create beautiful, professional, custom designed, career-essential websites that are easy to maintain and to integrate with popular social networks.
www.netmusician.org
joe@netmusician.org

Re: [BLUG] How cheap can you build a box?

Some places have Android pads for as low as $129.99:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=NBA7400ATP

Though I think this is the least cool of the options.

Btw, if you want an old PIII system, there are ways to get them
literally free. For example, you can check dumpsters around town,
especially at the end of the spring semester.

--
Jonathan

On 28 October 2010 10:02, Michael Schultheiss <schultmc@cinlug.org> wrote:
> David Ernst wrote:
>> Another option is an iPad, or preferably a iPad-like Android device,
>> which seem to be "soon but not quite yet".  Thoughts on those?
>
> K-mart has Android tablets for $179.99 [1]  I've heard mixed reviews
> about that particular tablet but it's a much better price point than the
> iPad.
>
> [1]
> http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_020W023705190001P?prdNo=3&blockNo=3&blockType=G3
> _______________________________________________
> BLUG mailing list
> BLUG@linuxfan.com
> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
>

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[BLUG] The sort of email conversation that I like.

I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. <http://www.nanowrimo.org/>.

There's a new type of writing application designed to help you manage
a novel growing and changing in different places as well as allow easy
major restructuring. It is designed for the earlier stages of a book,
and when it is time to finalize the formatting it is expected that the
compiled output is read by an office or formatting application.

There's a popular Mac OS X writing application in this genre called
"Scrivener" <http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html> It's a
commercial application with a lot of polish. It may be a commercial
app, but it leverages open standards when possible. All the data is
stored in XML and RTF. (The Open Document Foundation doesn't currently
have a format that cleanly maps to this sort of document set.)

They're releasing a beta of their upcoming Windows edition for
NaNoWriMo. Prior to this they were exclusively Mac OS X.

I sent them an email asking them to consider supporting Linux by way
of WINE. I'm including that email, plus their immediate response and a
recent follow-up.

I got such a kick out of the response that I felt I should share it. I
have to say that this sort of corporate attitude is one that I'm happy
to support with money.

Cheers,
Steven Black

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steven Black <yam655@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 7:07 PM
Subject: Have you considered supporting Linux?
To: support@literatureandlatte.com

I know, you're thinking "Linux? We're still getting the Windows
version ready!" but it isn't as bad as all that.

All I'm really asking is that it cooperate with WINE, the Windows
Emulator. <http://www.winehq.org/> That is, it would be using the
exact same Windows binaries.

The problem? While WINE works really well there may be places where
the use of an unsupported (or poorly documented) function (or an
incompletely implemented function) will cause something to break.

Would this really be a viable solution to putting out a Linux version?
Well, it works well enough that WINE is used by Google Chrome, among
others. You wouldn't be the first to say, "We're not putting out a
Linux-native version -- but we'll fully support the use of WINE."

Would this require someone on your team to actually use Linux?
Actually, WINE also runs on Mac OS X.
<http://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX/Installing> (No supported DMG package
at this time -- but it is included in Mac Ports and Fink.)

I'm not saying this should interrupt your current development cycle.
-- Make the upcoming releases awesome. -- I'm just saying that before
NaNoWriMo 2011 with a minimal amount of work you could go from
supporting just Mac OS X and Windows to supporting all three of the
major operating systems.

Cheers,
Steven Black

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ioa Petra'ka <support@literatureandlatte.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 11:51 PM
Subject: Re: Have you considered supporting Linux?
To: Steven Black <yam655@gmail.com>

Steven,

Yes, we have! It won't be any time soon, mind you, but myself and the
Windows developer both use Linux, so it's something we have thought
about. Main focus for now is to get the Windows and Mac versions as
solid as possible, gauging the support impact that Windows will have,
and then once everything stabilises, considering a Linux move. The
nice thing about it is that the Windows version is written in QT. So,
as you can imagine, a Linux "port" would actually be extremely easy.
It's mostly a matter of priority focus and support minimalisation that
keeps us from doing a full cross-platform spread at the moment.

Thanks for the interest though. We've been hearing a lot of feedback
on people that would be interesting in a Linux version. I think it
would be great in conjunction with a low-impact netbook distro.

--
Ioa Petra'ka
Scrivener - Outline. Edit. Storyboard. Write.
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ioa Petra'ka <ioa@literatureandlatte.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 5:55 PM
Subject: Re: Have you considered supporting Linux?
To: Steven Black <yam655@gmail.com>

Good news, Steven, we've decided to release a totally unsupported, but
native Linux binary. It won't be anything fancy. No .deb files or
anything like that. We just can't afford to spend resources on it
right now, but so many people were interested in getting it working
through WINE that we decided we might as well just put out something
there for people to play with and use. Check our Windows forum for
more information later tonight.

--
Ioa Petra'ka
Scrivener - Outline. Edit. Storyboard. Write.
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/
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Re: [BLUG] How cheap can you build a box?

This might be a viable option

http://computersight.com/hardware/alternative-100-dollar-computer-available/

On Oct 28, 2010 12:24 PM, "Mark Warner" <mhwarner@gmail.com> wrote:
> David Ernst wrote:
>>
>> Although we wouldn't want used equipment either...
>
> Why not? You can buy pallets of old P-IIIs for next to nothing on eBay.
>
> --
> Mark Warner
> MEPIS Linux
> Registered Linux User #415318
>
>
>
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Re: [BLUG] How cheap can you build a box?

David Ernst wrote:
>
> Although we wouldn't want used equipment either...

Why not? You can buy pallets of old P-IIIs for next to nothing on eBay.

--
Mark Warner
MEPIS Linux
Registered Linux User #415318

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Re: [BLUG] How cheap can you build a box?

David Ernst wrote:
> Another option is an iPad, or preferably a iPad-like Android device,
> which seem to be "soon but not quite yet". Thoughts on those?

K-mart has Android tablets for $179.99 [1] I've heard mixed reviews
about that particular tablet but it's a much better price point than the
iPad.

[1]
http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_020W023705190001P?prdNo=3&blockNo=3&blockType=G3
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Re: [BLUG] How cheap can you build a box?

You might also check out mini-ITX motherboards and related systems. I
built a computer over 5 years ago with one of these mother boards for
~$300 in a Gentoo Cafe Press lunchbox.

http://www.mini-box.com/

-Chris Colvard

On 10/27/2010 03:00 PM, Mark Krenz wrote:
> Perhaps a Beagle Board would be an option:
>
> http://beagleboard.org/
>
> I think its a bit more than $200 to build a whole system with a holding
> case. But they are small and good for what you described.
>
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 06:33:40PM GMT, David Ernst [david.ernst@davidernst.net] said the following:
>> General question, only tangentially linux related:
>>
>> I was talking with a colleague about the possibility of building a
>> dedicated appliance for a certain application. They'd need to deploy
>> a number of them, so they'd like them to be inexpensive. It would use
>> a touch screen monitor, not necessarily have any networking, and not
>> need impressive computing power. I thought "my netbook could do it",
>> but then I thought, my netbook has all kind of things that we don't
>> need, like fold-up portability, a webcam, etc. And we definitely
>> wouldn't need the latest-greatest processor speed either. Although we
>> wouldn't want used equipment either...
>>
>> So, the question basically comes down to: what's the cheapest system
>> you could buy/build that would
>>
>> * run linux
>> * attach to a monitor
>> * have usb ports
>>
>> We really wouldn't need a Hard Drive, a 16G SD card would be fine.
>>
>> The simple, easy solution would be to get something like this:
>>
>> http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-ETP1602C-BK-X0163-Touch-Screen-Desktop/dp/B002VY8OS8
>>
>> so, if we can't significantly beat $380, there's no use. And that's
>> including the touchscreen monitor, which will be at least $100, so
>> with no monitor it's gotta be down well below $300, preferably below
>> $200. But, couldn't you get a motherboard, a not-super-fast CPU, some
>> kind of a case, and a USB Interface for less than that? Thoughts?
>>
>> Another option is an iPad, or preferably a iPad-like Android device,
>> which seem to be "soon but not quite yet". Thoughts on those?
>>
>> David
>> _______________________________________________
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>> BLUG@linuxfan.com
>> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
>>

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