Apple today announced that Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Leopard will go on sale on Friday, October 26, at the same time as Mac OS X Leopard. Leopard Server extends Apple’s legendary ease of use, making it even easier to take advantage of the benefits of a server, and introduces Podcast Producer, the ideal way to automatically publish podcasts to iTunes or the web. Leopard Server packs more than 250 new features including Wiki Server, allowing people to collaboratively create and modify their shared web sites with just a few clicks; and iCal Server, the world’s first commercial CalDAV standard-based calendar server.
“Leopard Server is the best release of Mac OS X Server yet, bringing more great innovations, like Podcast Producer, Wiki Server and iCal Server,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, in the press release. “With new setup features that have a server up and running within minutes and no client access licenses, Leopard Server is the ideal alternative to complicated and expensive server offerings for small and large businesses.”
Leopard Server presents new features for effortless setup, management and monitoring of systems on the network. Server Assistant configures server applications, network settings such as IP addresses and DNS configurations and user accounts with just a few clicks. Server Preferences simplifies management of users, groups and key server applications, and a Server Status Dashboard widget remotely monitors activity and usage. Leopard Server also eliminates the need to manually set up Leopard clients by automatically configuring client applications, including file sharing, Mail, iChat, iCal, Address Book and VPN from user information stored on the server.
Podcast Producer is the easiest way for anyone to record content, automatically upload it to the server and convert it into a podcast optimized for playback on almost any device, including a High Definition TV, iPod, Apple TV or multimedia-enabled cell phone.
With Wiki Server, anyone can easily create and edit collaborative web pages, called wikis, with a few clicks of a mouse. Wiki Server has 20 Apple-designed web page themes and provides a complete revision history to make it easy to restore previous entries and merge or compare different versions. Wiki Server can automatically notify users whenever a change is made, keeping them up-to-date on the latest information, and users can tag keywords to find content quickly.
It’s easy to share calendars, schedule meetings and coordinate events within a workgroup, school, small business or large corporation using iCal Server. iCal Server is the first open, standards-based calendar server that works with popular calendar programs which support the new CalDAV standard and does not require client access licenses, so businesses can add users freely as they expand at no additional cost.
Leopard Server is fully UNIX compliant and its core services, including Apache 2, MySQL 5, Postfix, Podcast Producer and QuickTime Streaming Server, are 64-bit, allowing users to work with larger data sets and take full advantage of the performance and processing power of their 64-bit hardware. Since Leopard Server is fully 32-bit compatible, users can run 32-bit and 64-bit applications natively side-by-side.
Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Leopard will be available on October 26 at Apple’s retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of US$499 for a 10-client edition and $999 for an unlimited-client edition. An unlimited client license of Leopard Server is included with Apple’s powerful Xserve rack-mount server hardware at no extra charge. Online pre-orders can be made through the Apple Store starting today and current subscribers to the Apple Maintenance Program will receive Leopard Server as part of their service agreement. Volume and maintenance pricing is available from Apple. The standard Mac OS Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Xserve system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after October 1, 2007 for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95. Leopard Server can run on any Macintosh computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or G4 (867 Mhz or faster) processor, a minimum 1GB of RAM and at least 20GB of available disk space.
Pre-order Mac OS X Leopard now from the Apple Store. Just $129. Free Shipping.
I’ll be first in line!
Where is the iChat and iCal for Windows? These are needed to compete with Exchange.
Even if you have 95% Macs to manage out of hundreds, we still have to consider the few PCs in your organisation when choosing a server.
I can’t wait until Apple OS X Longhorn is finally released. I am going to wait at the local Apple store.
Just my $0.02
*Huh?*
“Podcast Producer is the easiest way for anyone to record content, automatically upload it to the server and convert it into a podcast optimized for playback on almost any device”
“With Wiki Server, anyone can easily create and edit collaborative web pages, called wikis, with a few clicks of a mouse. Wiki Server has 20 Apple-designed web page themes and provides a complete revision history to make it easy to restore previous entries and merge or compare different versions”
Are these “grown-up” versions of Garageband and iWeb?
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page Pod-Cast – now discussing Susanna Centlivre
“Where is the iChat and iCal for Windows? These are needed to compete with Exchange.”
Yeah, that would be Sunbird from Mozilla if you want to use the CalDAV server in OS X 10.5. with Windows…
@Holy Mackerel & @Steven Birch
From what I’ve been able to gather outlook will be able to use the server without too many problems, so you could use MS Office for the unfortunate windows users and still use OS X 10.5 server.
It’s too bad the 10-user version isn’t less expensive. I would think it would be a great training/learning platform for, say, a home computer layout. I could pop it on my dual-867 to support my future Leopard Mac and legacy Pismo. But at $499 it’s probably worth more than my box. Of course, if it came with Apple training books, it would definitely be worth it.