Cringley needs some math classes. Xserves are way overpriced, and they have IDE hard drives. You can get a comparable machine from Sun with SCSI for less.My components supplier will sell me a Western Digital 20G IDE hard drive for $60, a 120G for a $120, and a 250G for $287. Seagate SCSIs cost $174 for a 36G and $799 for 147G. Fujitsu SCSIs are even more expensive.
It sounds like the motherboards that sound cheap until you find out what the special memory chips cost.
-Eric