The Xserve gets axed January 31.

After January 31, you will no longer be able to buy an Xserve, the Apple server meant for large businesses, the company said via a note posted on its site today.

Apple says it will however continue to support the hardware, including warranties and customer service.

Close watchers of the company shouldn't be too surprised about the sudden axing of the Xserve. Apple hadn't updated the hardware since April 2009, which is a long time between updates for a company that keeps its hardware on a 9-month to a year update cycle.

In its place, Apple is offering a substitute. The Mac Pro will now come in a server edition, starting at $2,999. It comes with a 2.8 gigahertz quad-core Intel Xeon processor, but can be configured with up to two 2.93 gigahertz six-core Xeon processors, and up to 32GB of memory. It also has four hard drive bays, and will come with Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard.

Apple has made moves recently that show it is positioning itself to grow its small share of enterprise computing. According to IDC, Apple had 3.6 percent of all commercial computer sales during the third quarter of this year.

Apple has been pushing the iPhone and iPad as enterprise devices, and recently signed up contractor Unisys to sell its hardware to large companies and government agencies.