Inside Apple's Leopard Server OS

An anonymous reader writes "Mac expert John Welch, author of the widely read OS X versus Vista comparison, delves into Apple's Leopard Server OS. He and Information week have on offer a deep dive into what's known so far about OS X Server 10.5, which will be showcased at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Welch weighs in on Leopard's iCal, Wiki, file, Quicktime, and mail services, along with Xgrid 2, Open Directory 4, and 64-bit capabilities. What does it all add up to? His assessment: Apple probably isn't aiming at 'big' enterprises; just the same, Leopard Server is shaping up to be a great SMB (small and mid-sized business) product. Welch writes: 'For about a thousand bucks on existing hardware, or for the cost of an Xserve, you get a really solid server, able to support Web services, collaboration, groupware, IM, and file services. You can run it with its own directory service, or as part of an Active Directory implementation out of the box. It provides some features that due to pricing and/or setup requirements, have traditionally been reserved for big enterprises — in particular clustering of both email and calendaring servers.'"

Comments

Re:Linux

[rindeee]

You're wrong. No offense intended. Your response is, I suspect, a common one. The reality however is that in the market Apple is targeting with this, MS is the standard. Could you build out a Linux box to do all the same stuff that Apple is doing here? Yeah, pretty much (not sure on the QuickTime streaming). That's not the point. What matters is that Apple HAS built it out. They've used OSS to do it. They wrapped it in a slick package. They've made it super easy to deploy, manage, extend, expand and use. A 'systems consultant' could walk in the door and give a small/medium business a complete solution using the Windows desktop and top notch OSS client software (Thunderbird, etc.) providing a truly complete solution for peanuts compared to what an MS back-end would set you back. Kudos to Apple!

The Windows guy ain't delivering.

[argent]

The Windows guy ain't delivering.

He's not Dilbert, he's Wally. Look at Vista... it's got a few improvements, but most of what's new in Vista is the business it's running out of its cubicle selling music and movies for the entertainment industry.

The Mac guy, maybe he's the guy in sales with executive hair, but luckily there's a better choice for the server room.

The employees you really want are in the Tron suit and devil costume.

Re:The Windows guy ain't delivering.

[argent]

Windows is also responsible for countless man-years lost to fighting viruses abnd worms that could have been avoided (yes, really, the big flood of Windows malware coincided with the introduction of Active Desktop and the merging of Internet Explorer, Outlook, and Windows Explorer through the HTML control), and that's just one of the ways it's a classic Wally-style "high maintainance employee". I've already mentioned its "moonlighting" as an enforcer for the RIAA and MPAA, which you can explore further in Peter Gutmann's article.

Businesses are used to putting up with people like this, so it's no wonder that they accept the same kind of abuse from computers.

Re:The Windows guy ain't delivering.

[rthille]

A friend who used to work at Microsoft who was talking to a current microsoft employee (paraphrased):
Former to Current: "What I want is a stable, secure system that works without having to reboot for patches all the time."
Current to Former: "Our server version is coming out later this year."

Former to Me: "That's when I knew she just didn't get it. She didn't realize that there are benefits to the 'regular consumer' by having a secure, stable system."

Me to Former: "You're surprised a Microsoftie doesn't get it? WTF?"

Re:Apple vs Microsoft

[UnknowingFool]

While certainly possible (and being done in some datacenters), Apple based server for public facing sites is a terrible idea, though unless you have money to waste and don't care for industry-grade support, so don't confuse the one kind of servers with the other.

I will admit that Apple doesn't have the Enterprise level support that Microsoft has. However, in every company I worked for, that Enterprise support did nothing for us. Whenever we actually had an issue (servers randomly crashing, web servers that don't respond to HTTP requests), our admins eventually found the solutions themselves online after days of frustrating tech calls to MS. They were there when we called them, but they were of little help to us.

But he's not the kinda guy you'd normally hire in your company. You'll hire the boring and predictable guy, who delivers.

Which one is the guy that is always 2 years late and when he finally delivers, the product does not live up to the original promises? As far as I know most companies (MS included) have marketing departments that oversell/overpromise. Dilbert is funny because that situation is more true that naught.

Most IT departments are conservative. They have to be. That's why Vista is not likely to be adopted by large companies until at least SP1. I would think that these departments would prefer the Mac if a Mac fits their needs. For most IT departments, it is about the right tool for the job. Need an Exchange server? Don't get a Mac. Need a file and print server? Windows, Linux, or Mac depending on your environment. With a Mac, they get a server (based on Unix) that fits into their environment fairly well with a minimum amount of support required and reasonable licensing.