The operating system Mac OS X 10.4 is released in two versions: client and server. The United States, which wants to strengthen its position in enterprise servers, claims that his product can easily be deployed in a networked environment Windows. Apple markets, Friday, April 29, its operating system Mac OS X 10.4, better known as code-named Tiger. With this new version, the firm apple displays the ambition to expand its sphere of constituencies to attack the server market in business. Mac OS X Server 10.4 is available at the same time that his client version.
“The goal is to propose a comprehensive solution server system, storage, equipment,” says a ZDNet Jonathan Hadida, product manager at Apple servers France. “Our arguments are price and openness,” the head, echoing an argument he had already stated last September. Mac OS X Server 10.4 is therefore described as a system open to other OS starting with Windows. Apple wants to facilitate the deployment of a Macintosh server in a Windows network. Its major function is embodied by the access control list (Access Control List or ACL), a tool to manage access rights of users to the server. ACL is supposed to manage very finely access permissions on files in the same way almost a Windows server. Apple has also included a tool for migration from Windows NT. Everything is done to facilitate the change of servers. In the end, “one can easily replace a Windows server with a machine MacOS X 10.4 Server in a Windows environment,” said Jonathan Hadida. Gartner and Novell are not convinced Within the firm Gartner, considering that Apple will step in the right direction. “A strong trends of the current market is the willingness of users to reduce the complexity of the server environment,” said Adrian O’Connell analyst at Gartner UK. He believes however that the road is still long for the American manufacturer, which is not clearly identified in this market. “The market share of Apple in EMEA in volume in 2004 amounted to 0.4%. We do not always expect to see strong growth of Apple in this market, “Adrian O’Connell. The release of Tiger does not seem apeurer publishers OS server-based Linux kernel. “From the list of functions available, we did not see any specific features that are not already included in our solution Suse Linux Enterprise Server,” said Chris Schaefer, engineer platforms at Novell UK. “You can argue that Apple products are often elegant and can attract professionals. But its software are not so appropriate for deployment servers. We do not see in this new system, a major impact for the server market. ” A step ahead of Longhorn Meanwhile, the client version of Mac OS X 10.4 incorporates the novelty as the main search tool files Spotlight, already evoked on ZDNet.fr. From a written request in letters, such as “vacation in Venice, Spotlight is able to find and organize the responses of all files related to this requitals results can then be sorted by type content (video, sound, presentation, e-mails, etc.). and saved in a folder, which will be updated automatically when adding or deleting documents correspondants.Cet search tool is present throughout the system, including at the module “help” the Finder. A feature that gives a beautiful MacOS ahead of Longhorn, the forthcoming Windows that also will include an advanced search system but not before 2006. For the rest, Tiger includes some 200 new features, including direct communication software iChat, to conduct conferences with ten corresponding simultaneous audio mode, and three in video mode. The office can also be decorated with mini-applications through the Dashboard tool, which lets you see one button, real-time weather, time, the stock exchange, etc.. The integrated Safari browser now supports the flow of information type RSS. Finally, Tiger also has a strengthened support for 64-bit applications. Again, Apple’s getting ahead of Microsoft which will include 64-bit compatibility for the general public in Longhorn.MacOS X 10.4 is available at a price of 129 euros and works with processors G3, G4 and G5. It requires a minimum of 256 MB RAM (512 recommended, 1 Go for comfort). The server version is sold 499 euros, and the same configurations as the client version.
May 31