14 DAY TRIAL // While most users are excited about the fact that Apple has officially announced next Friday as the Leopard release date, those with Mac networks are just as excited about the Leopard Server edition.
Those eager to update their server to Leopard will only have to wait until the 26th, as Apple will be releasing both versions of the operating system at the same time. The company has already established the Server version of OS X as a strong product, with serious advantages such as low fees for unlimited customers and a host of user friendly options that make managing medium sized networks as easy are running a Mac. Leopard Server offers over 250 new features, including Podcast Producer, Wiki Server and iCal 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. "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.
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.