G5 Xserve - Good Audio Potential? Options

[Tree Leopard]

G5 Xserve was recently released ...
http://www.apple.com/xserve/

1U, 19in rack mount unit, with multi-platform compatibility (mac / win / unix) with a lot of power. Bascially, a very attractive proposition, especially for hi-rez recording and DVD post.

From reports the unit is selling very well. (Sure, its price and features are aimed at medium to large enterprise.)
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/01/04/xs...serve/index.php

For the realists: if you had one of these in yor studio, how would you - given your particular config. and work processes - make use of it? I'm very curious about how people would take advatange of its features.
http://www.apple.com/xserve/specs.html

For the dreamers: ...do you visualize something that is a like half-step between the Mac Mini and Xserve, an upgradable 1U media server / external processor hub that keeps older model G4s in action (i.e. rather than buying a whole new computer to get the power) and is mobile and robust enough for "out of house" production projects...?

What are your thoughts?

[lepetitmartien]

Well the Xserve is around for some time now, it's just an upgrade

now, on the use of Wserve in sudios for example we had a go a while back (in the early days of the xserves) on a Xgrid system for audio. there are issues, especially real time computing, and specific developments to make this things possible. also xserve are too expensive, big and build like servers for this use.

As I wrote, a node mac mini, maybe a little larger with a G5, RAM (enough and eventually soldered), a small fast HD, no CD/DVD player (everything thru network), gigabit Ethernet, stackable, rackable (but not necessarily in a rack form), would be a DSP farmhouse for logic nodes. Buying powerbooks for this even G5 is just buying in an expansive way something that can be produced for cheaper.

It doesn't even need a video card…

And the power unit can be serving a stack (you build along the system)

Making the Node software layer (which must be some Xgrid thingy in fact) available to other editors would only expand the market, in audio in video, in 3D, in DTP (photoshop). And it'd be a more viable road than a huge 4 or 6 CPU desktop computer too expensive to buy and too niche market.

well…