Apple To Release Next OS For Desktop, Server

Code-named Panther, the upgraded platform serves up more than 150 new features from the previous "Jaguar" OS, according to Apple. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company had previewed Panther in late June at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

"Actually, Panther is coming out earlier than we had anticipated. It has come along nicely, so it will be out a little ahead of schedule," said Brian Croll, senior director of system software product marketing at Apple. The company previously had announced that Panther would ship by the end of the calendar year, he added.

Though optimized to work with the 64-bit Power Mac G5 desktops, which shipped in mid-August, Panther runs smoothly on G3 and G4 Mac desktops and notebooks with built-in USB support, Croll said. The new OS also offers broad compatibility out of the box with existing Apple and third-party applications, he said. That wasn't necessarily the case with Jaguar, which came out when the Unix-based OS X platform was still struggling to attain critical mass.

"In Jaguar, we had a whole raft of new features, and it was an extremely successful release for us. Essentially, it brought us up to an installed base of 8.5 million users of Mac OS X," Croll said. Since Jaguar shipped in August 2002, the release of native OS X versions of key Mac software from Adobe, Macromedia and Quark has helped Apple double the number of OS X-ready applications to around 6,500, he added. "So we're feeling like we have a lot of momentum right now with Mac OS X. And while Jaguar was a great release, we actually think that Panther is an even bigger release."

Panther serves up a redesigned Finder with file searching that's up to six times faster than Jaguar's search capabilities, Croll said. The new Finder also lets users put their favorite folders, storage, servers and iDisk in one location, and it offers dynamic browsing of the network for Mac, Windows and Unix file servers.

Another linchpin of Panther is Expose, which enables users to instantly view all open windows and select the one they want to go on top by unshuffling overlapping windows on the desktop into an organized thumbnail view, Croll said. A Fast User Switching function also allows users to switch seamlessly between active user accounts without having to quit applications or log out.

Solution providers will appreciate Panther's improved Windows compatibility, which provides smoother sharing of files, printers and network services with Windows users, according to Croll. Microsoft Exchange support also is built into Panther's Mail and Address Book applications, making it easier to access Exchange e-mail and synchronize address book entries. In addition, Panther brings advancements to Mac OS X's open-standard Unix foundation, including support for the latest open-source libraries, commands and technologies, X11 applications, IPv6, Kerberos integration and an improved NFS file system. Panther also includes Xcode, an integrated developer environment with a user-friendly interface and developer tools such as GCC 3.3 for crafting Mac OS X applications.

Other new features in Panther include FileVault, which lets users encrypt their home directory; Font Book, an application that provides system-level font management; a faster PDF reader in a new Preview application; advanced spam-filtering technology in an enhanced Mail application; iChat AV, an instant-messaging and video conferencing application that Apple launched in June; the iSync 1.2.1 and iCal 1.5.1 updates to Apple's synchronization and calendar applications; and the latest versions of Apple's iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes multimedia applications and Safari Web browser.

Apple solution providers who had seen the preview version of Panther said the new OS stands to give the Mac platform a big boost. "OS X 10.3 Panther is absolutely incredible," said Larry O'Connor, CEO of Other World Computing, Woodstock, Ill.

Panther represents a step forward for Mac OS X, said Scott Schaefer, president of Techknowsphere, a New York-based Apple specialist. "Panther OS X 10.3 is more of a complete, new OS than it is evolutionary. They've changed so much under the skin. There's a lot that's the same, but there's also a lot that's different," said Schaefer, who had tried the preview version. "Printing is improved yet again--just the whole speed of everything. Once people really get a grasp of how much difference Panther makes in performance, people who like OS X as it is now are going to jump to Panther in droves."

The Panther server version, Mac OS X Server 10.3, features a new Server Admin tool that helps administrators set up and manage OS X's open-source software more easily. It also includes Open Directory 2, for hosting scalable LDAP directory and Kerberos authentication services; the JBoss application server for running J2EE applications; and Samba 3, for login and home directory support of Windows clients. Tom Goguen, director of server software product marketing at Apple, said that with Mac OS X Server 10.3, his company is the first major vendor to ship a server OS with Samba 3.

Panther Server also ushers in a brand-new mail server, which leverages the open-source Postfix SMTP and Cyrus IMAP and POP servers; a new VPN server that supports Mac OS X, Windows and Unix clients using PPTP and L2TP tunneling protocols; and an update of the popular Apache Web server, along with Apache Tomcat and Apache Axis for building Web services.

The desktop version of Panther is priced at $129 for a single-user license and $199 for a single-residence, five-user family pack. Panther Server carries a price of $499 for a 10-client edition and $999 for an unlimited-client version. Croll said Apple is working to make both platforms available on new hardware, including Power Mac G5s and Xserve rack-mount servers, as quickly as possible. In the meantime, customers who buy the Jaguar software or hardware with the Jaguar platform on or after Oct. 8 can purchase a Mac OS Up-To-Date upgrade package for a shipping and handling fee of $19.95.