Apple is leveraging the power of open source development in a new effort to directly target Microsoft Exchange Server. A new standards based, open source Calendar Server will debut this year with Leopard Server; the source itself is already available at MacOSForge.org,” Daniel Eran writes for RoughlyDrafted.
Full article here.
“Apple’s new Calendar Server is part of a new push into workgroup servers,” Eran writes. “Rather than trying to copy Microsoft’s tools, Apple is building its own
vision of collaborative workgroup services. Why Apple is offering a calendar server might come as a surprise.”
Full article here.
If this is true it is HUGE!!!
*crickets
Thank God, it’s about time! Creep’n into the office….. good bye MS.
We’ll see how effective this is in the next few years. VISTA is a new coat of paint on XP, but it includes a bunch of new “features” that a lot of Windows users will not be happy about (DRM, overbearing security).
Apple is great at integrated solutions so I can see them making a compelling product, but how well they’ll sell remains to be seen.
This could be huge, especially for a small professional office: an alternative to Microsoft Exchange that’s easy to deploy and maintain. It’s enterprise for the 21st century. Bring it on, Steve!
The implications are huge, the calendar means little, but the fact that they are working on such things means volumes.
-Pi
Link to original article is broken.
Nah… Microsoft Exchange is too entrenched & just too damn good. Apple’s piecemeal approach can never unseat Microsoft in the enterprise. Never. Let’s face it, folks… it just isn’t going to happen. That’s not a really horrible thing, though — Steve Jobs has his eye on the consumer, and he’s winning over the consumer. But he will NEVER EVER EVER win over the enterprise customers. It just isn’t going to happen in our lifetime or the next lifetime. Sorry. But consumers are where all the real fun is to be had!
For a small company like us in France this sort of colllabrative tool built into Os X server will save us a bundle on our meagre IT budget. I know there are progs out there that share calendar data but take up some time in managing and are not centralised. I am the IT department, head chef, maintenance man etc etc and know there are plenty small companys that don’t want to spend all day managing their IT infrastructure…..now if they can do it with the address book as well I’ll be really happy.
this is where they should partner with Google
i think having an alternative to Exchange would be huge
I read that RoughlyDrafted all the time. He is good. He has lots of good articles about Apple.
@ MacBill – …”It just isn’t going to happen in our lifetime or the next lifetime.”
Well not to diss you but lets check out the figures here, the average life span for a person in the “Western world” at the end of the Twentieth Century is about 77 years – and i am going to round this number down to 70 years, and then add half that figure – to come up with 105 years.
Apple are only 30 years old, and look what they have achieved so far in this nascent biz.
The Wright Brothers made their first powered and controlled flight in 1903 and by 1969 man was walking on the moon – only sixty-six years later.
So many many things are going to change, even by the end of my lifetime and I’m almost 48. The next 105 years will be so phenomenal, if not worrying, that my head spins thinking about it.
The computer enterprise market is still a glint in the consumers eyes.
Hang in there buddy, plenty of time for a change in the weather……
this is true and has been known for sometime, why is this just making news? It will also have a new wiki server as part of Leopard server, it’s all very easy to setup also and the blogs even easier. Hoorah for whole IT deparments who total a number of 1 (like me, lol). Who cares if MS continues to win enterprise wars, let apple go for the consumers.
Simple1 : I knew about the iCal server, but the Wiki is very cool.
iCal Server
Wiki Server
Microsoft’s Exchange product is very entrenched in IT infrastructure, and many competitors – including IBM – have not yet broken through.
So if the likes of these industry heavyweights have yet to make a dent, what hope is there for an open source calendar server?
There’s a long, long way to go before Apple will have a credible (i.e. it works) and viable (i.e. you won’t get fired for installing it) solution to compete with Exchange.
So show me. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Now that’s something I’m interested in….
Zimbra already runs on OS X Server and offers a real alternative to Exchange.
Marcus is on the right lines.
Apple’s servers will be very tempting for smaller businesses that need to be largely self-sufficient. Currently the usual solution is to employ specialist IT staff, often a small department.
By providing a solution that saves salaries, Apple can have a beneficial effect on the bottom line. Larger companies have IT departments that are too tied to Microsoft to make that sort of jump at the moment, but things might change if Apple starts making significant inroads into small and medium businesses.
That guy is really smart @ RD.
Does a lot of research or just knows too much about
apple and tech in general. Good read.
Hey, this advancement also is about moving data to and from the iPhone and the next generation iPod. Think of the big picture here — integrated hardware and software.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple use this as a part of more affordable home and small business servers. Calendar Server technology is applicable in these markets as well. Already, Home servers are needed now for multimedia storage (music, still photos, home video, and commercial movies and TV shows). Such a tool also could be used to help schedule automated iTunes Store downloads or HDTV recordings on a Calendar — should Apple ever add a DVR capability to the Mac.
But if it is successful, the iPhone will drive the need for the Calendar Server.
Always a favorite. Roughly drafted…heheh….
That would be so insightful if I hadn’t written the same thing already back in August when Leopard was announced:
http://www.innerexception.com/2006/08/apples-leopard-attacks-part-1.html
For those talking about home and small business, servers. Don’t forget that Apple’s new AirPort Extreme Base Station allows users to plug in a large USB2 hard drive ( or multiple drives and printers via a hub ) in order to provide shared networked storage which will be available to all users on that network.
Some of the features in Leopard look as though they’ll be able to make excellent use of that sort of ability.
One of the thing that always impresses me with Apple is how all the individual parts work together and form a system that works wonderfully together.
This really isn’t anything new. Apple talked about all of this at WWDC and even has it posted on their website. The only thing new here is the assumption (rightly so) that they are doing this to go after MES.
I agree – great article.
Not too sure if Apple providing an alternative to Exchange will work. Most people want their machines in integrate with what they have.
Still we’ll haveto see what Leopard has for us and what Apple have come up with.