Up until fairly recently, however, OS X Server remained the rarified domain of corporate IT departments. Apple has sold server products for years - even in the pre-OS X "Classic" Mac OS days. The history of Macs as servers is almost as long as the Mac itself. Working hand-in-hand with OS X on desktop and laptop Macs They're very interested in seeing OS X Server do well, because it's crucial to the entire Apple ecosystem.
Should you infer from that a disinterest in server software coming from Apple's senior management? No. It includes powerful open source software like Python, a popular scripting language, PostgreSQL for Structured Query Language (SQL) database support, and Apache, a popular open-source web server.Īpple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, offered nary a word about OS X Server during his keynote presentation introducing Mavericks at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco last month.
OS X Server, using the same underpinnings as OS X, provides server-strength file sharing capabilities, database publication (including contact and calendar functionality), live video streaming, e-mail service, wiki and Web site publication, iOS device management, and more. Let's take a look at some of the enhancements coming to OS X Server when Mavericks bows this fall. In all that's been written or said about OS X Mavericks, precious few words have been saved for OS X Server, which, of course, is getting the Mavericks treatment too.