The Future of Mac OS X Server
I’ve put on my magic prognostication propeller beanie again today and it’s telling me about the future of Mac OS X Server 10.7 (Lion Server). Let’s weigh the evidence:
- Apple has discontinued the Xserve
- For the first time ever, there is no corresponding page on Apple’s site touting the features of (the ostensibly upcoming) Lion Server
- Apple has not sanctioned or announced the running of Mac OS X Server on non-Apple hardware, or in a virtualized environment like VMWare’s ESX.
To a Mac Enterprise outsider, it would appear that Apple is abandoning the enterprise market and that Mac OS X Server has been end-of-lifed. I can easily see how a person could come to that conclusion, seeing as it’s even partly true.
I believe that Apple isn’t so much discontinuing Mac OS X Server as they are forking it into a new product that will have a lot of the same functionality that Mac OS X Server currently has but which also has tools for managing iPads and iDevices. For the sake of argument, let’s call this new product iServer. Apple’s iServer will provide us Mac admins with most of the services we’re used to (DHCP, DNS, iCal Server, NetBoot, SUS), but it will also give us tools for the deployment and management of iDevices.
Currently, the management and deployment of a fair number of iPads is a nightmarish hodgepodge of iTunes, iTunes Store accounts, Apple’s iPhone Configuration Utility, and a whole lot of patience. Distribution of purchased apps to multiple iDevices remains a manually-accomplished task. There is no joy in Mudville for an administrator who must deploy and manage hundreds of iDevices. An iServer product that can make this task manageable would go a long ways towards easing the adoption of iDevices into traditional corporate and enterprise markets.
iServer won’t be a full-blown operating system like Mac OS X Server. Instead, it’ll be a suite of management softwares that run on other operating systems (Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.7, possibly even Linux if Apple makes all the tools with a web front-end). As such, it won’t necessarily require Apple hardware like current version of Mac OS X Server. This is why Apple can kill the Xserve and not have it greatly affect Macs in the Enterprise. With the release of Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), the Mac will become more like an iDevice and will be managed much the same way, with the tools that iServer will provide.
Everyone is clamoring for an iPad and an iPhone. Tech departments everywhere are being forced to manage devices far outside their traditional realm. If Apple can release an iServer product that talks seamlessly with an AD schema and with Microsoft’s enterprise services, it would break down that last wall into many businesses. The iDevices would be peers to the vast army of Blackberries that still has a stranglehold on corporate America.

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The iPad is a game-changer. We’re on the first upswing of a true paradigm shift in how technology will be used by the majority of people in the world. Computers as we know them today will be around for a long time still, but it’s clear that the industry is changing.
I have a message for all the early-adopters and influencers who are denouncing the Apple iPad. As an early-adopter and technology gadget-hound myself, this has been a hard realization to make, but it doesn’t make it any less true. The message: What we want and ask for in an Apple Tablet simply doesn’t matter.
Apple is completely screwing over a significant portion of its most valued customers by making laptops with non-removable batteries.
Like the rest of the IT industry, I noticed when Microsoft–the proverbial 800lb gorilla in the room–waded into the search engine market with what appeared to be a fairly sophisticated new product, Bing. Billed as a “Google killer”, it does actually show some promise: clean interface, fairly accurate results, decent customization options, and it’s fast–all things that a good engine should be. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s cluelessness has once again bitten them in the ass and rendered their shiny new search engine completely unusable by the vast majority of school systems in this country. Here’s why.
So you’re a Mac tech and you regularly encounter hundreds, if not thousands, of Macs. And while these Macs share an operating system, they are often more different than they are alike. Users install the strangest stuff and do mind-bogglingly weird things to their systems, often while attempting to solve a problem themselves. Your job is to fix these neglected, abused, and mucked-up Macs. So, which tools do you use, and what tips or tricks are there to help you overcome the unforeseen problems that are lurking behind the innocent login window? Here’s my setup. You are welcome to copy or modify to fit your particular Mac troubleshooting environment:
I almost can’t even believe it.