If Apple has been able to sell these things as clusters for supercomputer applications, that's great but I remember reading about some university research project that built one of the ten largest supercomputers in the world out of a bunch of PS2's.
It's been touted that it now runs on Intel processors. Normally this is a huge selling point for an operating system because it means that you have the widest possible range of hardware platforms to run it on. But if it's got to be an Intel processor you can only get from Apple, I don't see that it matters whether it's Intel, Motorola, or something they build in house. Choosing to use that OS means you're locked into that hardware vendor and that can get to be a costly position for any company to get themselves into. I'll grant you it insures compatibility and gives them the ability to tweak the OS to the maximum capability of the hardware, but there are consequences to letting software lock you into a hardware vendor that have to be considered.
I'm an OS X fan because of its merits. I'm a fan of some of Apple's other capabilities where merit warrants it. You're not a fan because of -- apparently zero Apple experience. That is a common occurrence.
If Apple has been able to sell these things as clusters for supercomputer applications, that's great but I remember reading about some university research project that built one of the ten largest supercomputers in the world out of a bunch of PS2's.
Virginia Tech hit #3 for only a few million dollars using Apple XServes. No PlayStations have ever hit the list. One guy did make a small cluster out of eight PlayStation 3s. IBM is planning to use the same Cell processor as the PlayStation to make a supercomputer.
but there are consequences to letting software lock you into a hardware vendor that have to be considered
Yet I don't see you railing against Sun servers or IBM mainframes or minis.