Apple unveils Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server, cuts price in half

New features include:
iCal Server 2 -- This upgrade to Leopard's iCal Server now provides push notification, wireless accessibility to your calendar from any iPhone, a new web-based calendaring interface, and updates to CalDAV that now allow you to invite colleagues to meetings via email.
Podcast Producer 2 -- Podcast Producer, which was added to the server mix in Leopard, is now improved with Podcast Composer. This new feature lets you create your own workflows for automating completion and publishing of podcasts. There's also a new Setup Assistant in Server Admin that can set up Podcast Producer 2 in a manner of minutes, even if you're setting up a cluster of servers.
Wiki Server 2 -- Workgroups wishing to collaborate now have a little bit more to love from Wiki Server. The only real new feature is iPhone support; users can securely log into confidential wikis and content, and even review content and comments from the iPhone.
Mobile Access Server -- The piece that I'm probably the most excited about as an Xserve admin is Mobile Access Server. This new feature is like a custom VPN for Mac and iPhone users. As long as they're set up in the server's directory service, users can get secure, encrypted access to the server and network with very little hassle.
Mail Server -- The engine running Mail Server has been totally redesigned for much faster service, and now provides push email, vacation messages and server-side rules, and improvements to mail server clustering.
Web Server -- The biggest change to Web Server is that it can now do HTTP live video streaming. Performance is about 1.3x faster than Leopard Server's web services as well.
Client Management -- Organizations that are deploying many iPhones will love the new client management piece of Snow Leopard Server. It has an iPhone configuration utility for creating profiles that can be emailed to corporate users, thus setting up secure services in a few seconds. Administrators can now also use NetRestore to rebuild Macs over networks, based on either a custom build disk image or a standard OS X install disk.
Best of all, Snow Leopard Server will cost $499 for unlimited users (a sharp reduction from Leopard Server's price of $999 unlimited, $499 for 10 users) and should be shipping at the same time OS X 10.6 is available to the rest of us. I'd just be happy if Apple has finally fixed a lot of the issues with backing up network users to Mac OS X Server using Time Machine.
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Enterprise Software Education WWDC Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard
If you have Mac servers in your business, you weren't left out of the Snow Leopard fun during the keynote earlier today. Apple also...
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Is it likely that iCal2 will allow Windows based clients use their Outlook to a access the iCal server?
June 10 2009 at 7:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply@RicoSuave: I'm sorry to tell you that Apple seems to have quietly dropped support for ZFS in Snow Leopard Server (at least the write support that was previously promised). I'm amazed this nugget hasn't cropped up on any blogs or rumor sites before now. I'm personally disappointed, but I imagine there'll be a rumpus when the realisation sets in among enthusiastic admins waiting for some modern filesystem loving.
If you want to see for yourself, compare the details from here http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/specs.html with Google's cached earlier version here: http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.apple.com%2Fserver%2Fmacosx%2Fspecs.html&fr=inq-x&u=www.apple.com/server/macosx/specs.html&d=DJuRBxlMS7qp&icp=1&.intl=uk
Feel free to repeat the exercise with other pages about 10.6 Server
So why does x86_64 have 2.3x the performance in SMB than x86_32? Weird.
June 09 2009 at 2:44 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhat would the equivalent Windows server software cost, $10K - $30K?
June 08 2009 at 9:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyPer user, per month, I think you're about right. :)
June 09 2009 at 11:15 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAny chance of TUAW doing an actual walkthrough and thorough review of Snow Leopard Server once it is released? You guys really let me down last time when Leopard came out!
June 08 2009 at 9:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyDon't count on Mac OS X Server 10.7 to be as cheap, 2 yrs from now :-)
June 08 2009 at 8:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI think there will actually be no Mac OS X 10.7
The next OS will be Multi-Touch or won't be, and for this reason, will be Mac OS XI, or not.
Boom! It's gonna be even greater and more affordable to be all up-to-date with what Apple builds best: Software! That's HUGE guys, let's think about that one minute! That's POWER IN OUR HANDS!
June 08 2009 at 8:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI really really wish they'd port Software Update Server out to a standalone product, my house's mac-a-philia is getting a bit ludicrous when those big dot release updates hit.
June 08 2009 at 7:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplySeems like that would be a great feature for time capsule ...
June 08 2009 at 8:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyMust be a mistake.... $499 for an unlimited license and the same for a 10-seat license? How about $199.....
June 08 2009 at 7:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe article doesn't say Snow-Leopard is $499 for 10 users, it says that Leopard was $499 for 10 users. The article doesn't state what the price of a 10-user license is, if there is still one (I hope so).
June 08 2009 at 7:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyDoes anyone know if it contains the same features as the client? This is tempting for my MacPro considering the new SL server will include support for ZFS.
June 08 2009 at 7:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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