To deal with this, Apple has Address Book Server, which is based on the CardDAV IETF Draft. It’s tedious to properly secure LDAP implementations so that only those who should be modifying it and it’s terribly easy to make a mistake that affects the entire directory. But it was not designed to have hundreds or thousands of users modifying it throughout the day. It’s really good at letting you look up and get information from even a huge number of records in a hurry. While LDAP is great for a “master” contact list (a global address list in Microsoft-ese), if you want to allow people to make custom networked address books, or shared networked address books, it gets squishy. But LDAP is really not suited for the kinds of things a lot of companies want to do nowadays. Mac OS X Server has had a global contact list for some time now, thanks to the LDAP back end for its Open Directory service.

There are some minor issues that keep it from being outstanding, but those issues won’t affect everyone.Īddress Book Server is a new way of dealing with the problem that networked contacts can create. Apple has added quite a few brand new features that move this from an OK upgrade to an excellent one. If Apple had only cut the price in half, and kept the core OS improvements for Mac OS X 10.6 Server, it would be an OK upgrade. Along with simplifying the options for Server, Apple cut the price in half, from $999 for Unlimited to $499. You want Mac OS X 10.6 Server, you get Unlimited. So no more odd simultaneous access limitations on some file sharing and other services. The ten-client version is gone, and now there is one option: Unlimited.

While not perhaps as dirt cheap as Mac OS X 10.6’s $29 upgrade pricing, Apple has both simplified your options for Mac OS X 10.6 Server, and cut the price. Oh, and like Mac OS X 10.6, Mac OS X 10.6 Server is Intel-only. The latest version of Apple’s server OS boasts rather a lot of changes, designed to help boost Server’s attractiveness in the small-to-medium business, (SMB) market. The same cannot be said about Mac OS X 10.6 Server, however. Apple has made much of how Mac OS X 10.6 ( ) is a tuning of the operating system, removing older cruft, but not really adding new features to the OS other than some plumbing upgrades and Exchange 2007 support.

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