Any clues as to where I could find a background on Microsoft’s Server strategy? It would be helpful to compare.

In your article you note that there are some FOSS server “titles” for OS X, but one thing I was surprised you didn’t mention, as it may strengthen your argument, is that many of the FOSS operating systems have exactly what you propose for OS X already. Debian derivatives have apt, and PackageKit. RedHat derivatives have yum. BSD derivatives (and some Linux distros like gentoo) have ports. Indeed there is a version of ports for OS X called macports. Most of these tools even have one or more GUIs built on top of them. There is even an GUI for macports called Porticus.

GUI administration plugins isn’t new to the FOSS world either. Both gnome and kde have facilities to do this. Admittedly I’m not sure how often they are used given many who manage FOSS servers are comfortable (in many cases prefer) using the command line to interact with the machines.

I think you make a good case for what value Apple could bring to the table so no need to repeat. It will be interesting to see if Apple finds this to be a large enough revenue stream to pay attention.

The reason I was rather negative about servers is that in my own career I have only worked with crappy dull servers that didn’t do what you really wanted and required a work around as soon as possible. Basically I have never seen them doing more than printing, email and filesharing. Of course this is the very same reason why Dan is enthusiast about the cool new 3rd party server apps he is proposing.

The thing is that servers are such strange beasts somewhere in between visible, material end-user devices and abstract non-material cloud services. They smell like old-fashioned brick and mortar mainframes from a time when buying a computer involved making a building for it as well.
The power of Apple lies in selling those good looking mostly portable end-user devices that connect seamlessly to invisible but still understandable services. In providing those services Apple is pragmatic in deploying both centralized server-like solutions and decentralized peer to peer technologies like Bonjour.
One of the main attractions from Apple to me is that they are able to think in decentralized solutions. I am very happy my iPhone is syncing to my own computer and not to a Danger/Sidekick-like distant server. Apple devices are smart: they can interact with their environment but don’t require any centralized server or service to be up and running. Apple has been able to providing many network services by annihilating the server altogether: you can make a network printer by connecting any printer to an AirPort Express, you can get centralized back-up by buying a Time Capsule. Other traditional server functions have been upscaled to specialized firms like Google and Yahoo due to the possibilities of the internet.

Sure, if you are a cloud company you will need physical servers. But you will probably be able to solve the mysteries of building a computer of raw components as well. You will be likely to use things like Unix / Linux / Asterisk / Apache and what would be the added value of the famous Apple veneer?

Yes, it would be gorgeous to build business solutions upon OS-X because OS-X is such a great system. It is great that there is OS-X Server that is still kept alive anyway. But I find it hard to imagine where the added value would be between decentralized device based solutions on one side and highly specialized distant cloud services on the other side.

Why is this so or what does this mean?

Now again, I like Apple products to the point that our VP Ops calls me a “fan boy” … but being realistic here… unless Apple were willing to pump enough money into A- building an enterprise support structure (and sales for that matter) and B- expanding the product range then they really won’t be a viable option for anything other than small businesses. And I think they know this and are fine with it. Honestly if they were to pump that sort of money into building Enterprise support it would starve other divisions to get into an already crowded marketplace that doesn’t have nearly as much markup as they enjoy with consumer level products.

It could be a good platform for small business but how would they be aware of it existence ?

Where do you find training at a reasonable price and more on the user level ?

…

Still a lot of work to do to make it really useful for Humans (as opposed to computer’s geeks)

;-)

Configuring Server is much more difficult than it should be. I’ve been stymied each time and had to hire a consultant to do it. Things have to be set up a certain way in a certain order… Right now I have Leopard Server (for internal use including LDAP/mobile accounts) running on an Intel Mini, and Tiger Server (for external facing websites) running on an old G4/933. The only problem that machine has is it’s been getting hammered by password guessers..

But starting with version 5.6 or so, Mobile accounts finally started working correctly. That’s what I have on my laptop. When it’s connected on the home network, periodically it will connect and back itself up to the server. For a couple of versions of OS X.5, this stopped working altogether, but a later release fixed whatever was causing my problems.

I have not tried Snow Leopard server, my experience is with Tiger and Leopard server products.