Comment by sephware | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sephware | Hacker News Reader

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1) It probably makes them at least a noticeable percentage of revenue, if not much, so that cutting it out completely would maybe cut funding for a dozen employees. They'll need to dwindle sales down first, probably by deprecating it, so that they can justify the cut internally.

2) Even if they're backpedalling on the idea of macOS as a server and pushing for migrating to open source tools, they don't want to openly admit this, that always looks bad and unprofessional.

3) They're probably phasing it out slowly and in the next release or two they will probably deprecate it, and remove it completely from MAS in the next major macOS update.

4) They'll want to wait until they can play up their contribution and downplays that they were on the wrong side of history: "We're deprecating macOS Server, which has been a boon and a huge innovation in this space for 20 years, and helped $N millions of customers, but at this point the open source community has finally caught up to our quality."

5) At that point, the remaining useful features will be integrated into macOS proper for free, and they'll tout how they're benefiting everyone by doing this and simplifying everyone's workflow and saving everyone money.

> ) Even if they're backpedalling on the idea of macOS as a server and pushing for migrating to open source tools, they don't want to openly admit this, that always looks bad and unprofessional.

I think it looks way worse to just let it limp along and slowly die. Fail fast, learn your lesson, and move on.

>1) It probably makes them at least a noticeable percentage of revenue, if not much, so that cutting it out completely would maybe cut funding for a dozen employees.

They are APPLE, they have ridiculous cash. If said employees are of a high quality/standard then I am sure they can figure out something else for them to do at Apple. Even if it means paying them for a few months while they get trained up on a new project/department.

> I think it looks way worse to just let it limp along and slowly die. Fail fast, learn your lesson, and move on.

The benefit of limping along and dying slowly is that it can be relatively quiet and uneventful, and at least the project dies with the appearance of dignity, even though it's actually the opposite. Investors applaud "sticking it out" even though the engineers knew it was dead for years. Review sites write poignant eulogies, instead of writing angry rants which they would do if it was cut short.

The thing about software (and probably most kinds of products) is that there's always someone who relies on it, no matter how dumb of an idea the product is, and usually that group is larger than you expect or seems reasonable. Those people are often the ones who yell the loudest when you inconvenience them, which is why Apple has to pander to them by torturing macOS Server to death instead of euthanizing it.

> They are APPLE, they have ridiculous cash.

They have always acted like a start-up that's strapped for cash. I've known many Apple employees and it's just been part of the culture, that if you work at Apple, you're going to wear many hats and they're going to utilize every second of yours to 200%. It was especially so this in the days of Jobs, and I doubt it's changed much in the past decade.

>Investors applaud "sticking it out"

I am an investor (not in Apple, but other companies). Believe me, as an investor, there is nothing more that I want than for a company fail fast, and drop things quickly when they aren't working out. The worst thing for an investor is when a company tries to "stick it out" (investors read that as "wasting money").

> I think it looks way worse to just let it limp along and slowly die. Fail fast, learn your lesson, and move on.

I'm sure Apple are well aware of the lesson and are simply doing the right thing for the folks who did invest in macOS as a server. It is possible for a company to learn their lesson and do the best thing they can for their customer. Apple's financial position enables them to give a much longer runway than a typical startup changing direction.

>doing the right thing for the folks who did invest in macOS as a server.

The "right thing" at this point would be to help you clients move to something else (jumpcloud? AD, etc.) instead of continually putting out a diminished version of your product.

That's only one way to look at it. There are lots of weird integrations and third-party products that OS vendors have to account for in a decision like this. I don't know how they set dates for end-of-life on their products, but many vendors are obligated to provide support longer than a reasonable person might expect.

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