Hands up, who wants a Mac server? We mean, a real Mac server? There's been literally zero public acknowledgment by Apple that the company is hard at work on crafting a Mac that even a corporate IT dweeb could love, but we've been hearing whispers about honest-to-goodness rack-mountable, fault-tolerant, hot-swappable-component server Macs for a few months, now... and the rumors just keep on coming.

We know, we know; the last time you heard about these mythical server Macs, Think Secret was getting your hopes up that they'd actually make their debut at the last Expo keynote. Needless to say, those of you who chose to put a lot of stock in that particular rumor were sorely disappointed; in fact, not only are Apple's latest G4 Servers still basically just regular Power Macs with bundled software and the word "server" slapped on the box, but they're also not even current Power Macs. Single or dual 533 MHz processors? My, how early-to-mid-2001.

But if your faith in the grand vision of enterprise-class Mac servers hasn't been totally crushed into dust, faithful viewer The M@d H@tter tells us that Think Secret is once again all abuzz with whispers about Apple's alleged progress in that area. (Yes, we're fully aware that all the info to date about these supposed servers has apparently come from Think Secret. Feel free to consider that fact suspicious if you so choose.) Reportedly Apple is "actively soliciting feedback" from IT types on "how big the unit should be, what kind of power it should have, how many expansion slots should be on-board, and what it should look like." If that's true, then Apple has moved solidly into the advanced stage of development known as "Hey, Maybe We Should Make A Server."

Clearly if Apple is just now "in the process of planning the features and functionality" of these rack-mount servers, whoever projected them to join Steve onstage during the last Stevenote was waaaay off. The revised status update is that "something is definitely up" and "a prototype appears to exist." By that we can only project that "shipping last month" has just turned into "shipping sometime before the polar ice caps melt and a mutant race of flipper-bearing porpoise people inherit the earth." Circle the date on your calendars, server fans!