Apple recently announced Snow Leopard, their next version of OS X. Version 10.6 will contain a couple of new "under the hood" items that most users will likely not notice and a couple of very prevalent items that they will. While the computational power addition of using the GPU is strong, the most compelling reason for this release will be it's integration with Microsoft's Exchange messaging platform.
We're currently dealing with a client situation related to a merger of two companies with very different IT systems and philosophies. The "Merger" is a hard and true Microsoft shop, while the "Mergie" has been happily a Mac shop. Of course, there's a new implementation project that's spawned the age old Mac vs. PC debate for the new sites. And wow, what a political football it has turned out to be.
Circling the wagons is too tame of a description. Senior management (oddly) really cannot justify the need for the Mergie to move into the PC world, while the techies really state that either would be fine. Technically, Macs can now run all software PCs can run. Bootcamp or Parallels, among others, pretty much ensure that Macs have complete compatibility with anything that's been released for the PC.
Of course, there's Microsoft Office for the Mac, which remains perhaps the best version of Office that Microsoft has relased.
We like to argue this point by looking at recent trends and longer term directions. Microsoft Internet Explorer, for example, has lost market share continually over the past several years and is currently less than 75% with Firefox coming in somewhere around 18%. This trend is growing. More and more development shops are developing for Firefox as their base rather than IE. And this makes good sense as Firefox forces developers to focus on developing for standards, rather than proprietary extensions.
Which brings us to the possible coup d'etat, Full Microsoft Exchange support built into Apple Mail, iCal and Contacts. This is a key move for Apple as it removes the compatibility issue between the to, and removes the (supposedly) all important need for IMAP. MAPI, Microsoft's proprietary protocal, will be used in Snow Leopard as it will in the upcoming iPhone. This provides native support and access to the Exchange server allowing push email, among other things.
When this feature was mentioned the technical staffs on both sides of this issue became quite excited. It's a feature that for some would be compelling enough for the cost of another upgrade. Timing is the only thing we really question. Rumors put it at MacWorld '09. That would be interesting. Stay tuned....
Apple recently announced Snow Leopard, their next version of OS X. Version 10.6 will contain a couple of new "under the hood" items that most users will likely not notice and a couple of very prevalent items that they will. While the computational power addition of using the GPU is strong, the most compelling reason for this release will be it's integration with Microsoft's Exchange messaging platform.
Which brings us to the possible coup d'etat, Full Microsoft Exchange support built into Apple Mail, iCal and Contacts. This is a key move for Apple as it removes the compatibility issue between the to, and removes the (supposedly) all important need for IMAP. MAPI, Microsoft's proprietary protocal, will be used in Snow Leopard as it will in the upcoming iPhone. This provides native support and access to the Exchange server allowing push email, among other things.
