MacOS X Server

Peekaboo! We saw you, and so a lot of people did. Apple, seemingly by mistake, released onto its information sites such as the Tech Info Library and Apple Manuals page information about its upcoming operating system, MacOS X Server. The only information still up now is some MacOS X Server screenshots, but also put up was the full installation manual, including a list of supported systems, and some technical specifications for various parts of it like netbooting and such.

So, what is MacOS X Server?

Before the second coming of Jobs, Steve was the CEO of a digital animation studio that had just released a movie called "Toy Story." The Studio was Pixar, and he is actually still CEO (and principal owner) of it, but what we're really interested in is the company Steve Jobs set up when he first left Apple.

This company was called NeXT, and it was originally a computer company (developing a computer icon called the NeXT Cube). Later it became a software company, developing programs such as Web Objects, and a rather powerful, Unix-derived operating system called NeXTStep. During Gil Amelio's term as CEO of Apple, he made the courageous (and right) decision that Apple's internal search for a new Mac operating system (Copland) had pretty much broken down past reasonable resurrection, and the time had come to search for a new beginning. While everyone blithely assumed Apple would purchase Be's new BeOS, Apple actually was pursuing a more robust and polished Unix-based operating system, which, in addition to being older and more stable with a host of already available software, also had another large carrot for the then "embattled" Apple. It promised the return of one of Apple's original founders to the company. So Apple surprised the world by spending a cool US$400 million to buy NeXT Computing, which become the nucleus for Apple Enterprise, and the NeXTStep operating system. That would be ported to the PowerPC and become the basis for the new Macintosh Operating System, code named "Rhapsody" from its founder and principle owner, the incomparable Steve Jobs.

So What has all this to do with MacOS X Server?

After Jobs took back command of Apple as iCEO (for life), he remapped the Rhapsody project and renamed the future as MacOS X. He then promised that an improved version of the original Rhapsody would be released targeted for servers, power users and early adopters This new Rhapsody to be … MacOS X Server.

Various promises from Apple have targeted this new Operating Systems release date as Febuary '99, it now being March, the release of highly technical information directly pertaining to the consumer

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