Not because you cant run it, but because you dont want to build for it and configure it. Connect a projector to a Linux computer and share the display. I wouldnt do that for my presentation without trying it first (and when I did try recently the computer crashed). Even Microsoft got this right now with Windows 7.

Or, what was cool then is commodity now, and they need to go on to innovate?

Seriously? In the Microsoft world, so much effort and money is put into upgrading things that are not supported anymore. I mean, if you have an environment with XP, Office 2003, Sharepoint 2003 and IE6... Just live with it as long as the hardware works? Everyting discontinued, and nothing can be upgraded without upgrading all the other things as well.

I must agree! IT people can prefer whatever they want (even Wintendo if they choose). But I am bored of those who say Windows is so much better, and who never used a Mac or Linux machine in their life.

I think this is the reason, more than anything else. In the article (the transition-PDF) Apple says that the MacMini is already their most popular server product. And a Mac Mini today is more capable than an XServe from a few years ago (performance-wise).

I can imagine neither the XServe nor the Mac Pro sell very many units. Maybe it simply makes sense to drop one of them. And, as someone else already wrote, the Mac Pro has not been upgraded in long. Maybe a rack-mountable (sideways) Mac Pro, with (optional) redundant power supply will show up... and then its just the 1U thing.

Just a dream...

Maybe they plan to introduce a little mini-tower... 5.25-optical drives, 3.5-harddrives, replacable graphics adapter, aluminium body, fullsize-memory instead of laptop-memory, etc.

Of course it would be very popular, and maybe kill the Mac Pro. The iMac and MacMini sales would also suffer. But with the XServe gone, its a little bit more natural to introduce a new desktop model.

Simply an original Mac for those who build a Hackintosh today.
A Mac for gamers.
Maybe the most popular Mac ever?

Exactly... writing a simple application for X was arcane when I did it almost 10 years ago. Nobody really writes applications for X anymore - they write them for GTK, KDE.

Finally this happens... just a few years late. Apple got it right with Mac OS X - what has the rest of the *NIX community been doing all years when the solution was right in front of their nose? And since Mac OS X runs X applications properly, there is no worry this can not be done. It works today and it has been done.

I admit I have not contributed at all to this move either - but I welcome it now when I hear about it!

Application forwarding? This is not about killing the possibility to write applications for X, and forward them over X, if needed. This is about all graphical applications should not have to depend on TCP/IP.

I have thought about this a lot myself. I currently use DropBox, the free 2Gb edition for all may personal files. That is, not pictures, music and video.
I also upload backups of my mobile phone etc to dropbox. I use KeePass for passwords and upload the encrypted password database as well. I keep private life and work separate when it comes to data. Not using work email or work phone for private stuff. I dont use gmail/google documents for real things, because I dont want to have data everywhere. I try to store my personal documents in open formats so they will be readable in the future.

At home, I have a computer with pictures, music and video, that is turned on 24/7, and available for me remotely if necessary. I make regular backups of that data-disk to another local disk.

I am actually writing an F2F filesharing program, with the intention of being able to make easy, encrypted backups to my friends. It is expensive to get 50Gb at DropBox, but very easy to borrow 50Gb from a friend... if GOOD software is available to handle remote backups. Let me know if you are interested in trying my filesharing program.

I put up a little blog (http://www.zo0ok.com/techfindings) where I write down technical notes that I want to remember myself, and that could be useful to other people. I am thinking about putting up a wiki as well.

Someone moderated you Insightful. Makes me wonder...

And about modern technology...
Maybe rewriting GCC in python, and rewriting python in Assembler?