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Apple Releases Remote Desktop 3
Dan Uricoli writes to tell us MacFixIt is reporting that today Apple computer has released remote desktop 3 " Some of the new or updated features include; a Remote Spotlight search, Dashboard widget, Curtain mode, user history reports, and more.
This is a full-fledged adminstrative tool.
You can observe multiple computers, send UNIX commands to Mac OS X clients. (3.0 is 10.3.9 and Tiger only if I remember right), install packages on multiple computers, copy files to multiple computers, shut down, wake up, sleep, restart, search for files, install packages.
And new in 3.0 (Deuce) is remote spotlight searching, user history reports, and some automator and applescripting for (albeit limited) automation. There's also some nice UI improvements, things like being able to save task templates and remote drag-and-drop (drag a file from the computer you're controlling onto your desktop and vice versa) and remote clipboard (copy-and-paste)
The administrator portion of ARD is not meant for the user that wants to control his Mac desktop from another computer on the same network. It is meant for the administrators of those Macs on the network. Not just to take control of the desktop remotely, but for generating hardware/software reports, pushing out files, removing files, performing mass installs of packages, etc...
The client portion of ARD is free. Beginning with 10.3, the client was included with the OS. It is also available for download from Apple's website. You do not need ARD administrator in oder to control a Mac that has the client enabled. In the client there is a setting to enable VNC access. After doing so, that computer can be controlled just like any other computer running a VNC server.
I do not work in a Mac only environment. But ARD has proven valuable enough for each member of our staff to have their own licensed copy. It saves quite a bit of time when trying to manage ~2000 Macs spread out over the nine buildings in our WAN.
I do agree that the $499 price is a bit much, considering the major incompatibilities between releases. The main problem is that all those running ARD administrator must be upgraded at the same time. The reason being that a v2 admin cannot fully interact with a v1 client. Once the v1 client is updated (free) to v2, a v1 admin cannot fully interact with the v2 client. Heck, a v2.2 and v2.1 don't even play nice together. I haven't used v3 of the admin yet, but I am not holding my breath for this to change.