Now that the Xserve has been discontinued and is joining the Xserve RAID on the shelf of discontinued items, what’s the likely future of Mac OS X Server? After all, Apple is busy learning lessons from the iPhone and iPad and integrating them into Lion and likely improving how they all work together.
Reading the tea leaves, both in Apple’s actions as well as the wider world of network services, I think it’s possible that there won’t be a Mac OS X Lion Server release. At least not a separate boxed product.
Before you scoff and let me know how many places are still managing their local user accounts with OS X server and using Podcast Producer and so on, I didn’t just say that I think that most of the functionality of OS X Server is going way. But, I think that the separate SKU and packaging are.
After all, what is Mac OS X Server? How is it different than Mac OS X? The big secret is that it’s not very different at all. For all intents and purposes, you can view OS X Server as a set of software packages that runs on top of the same Mac OS X binaries that you have in your MacBook Air. Some of these packages include both the service software as well as the user interface to configure it. Others simply turn on or enhance functionality that’s already there in your current installation. A few of these packages provide access to, and support for, the specialized bits of hardware in the Xserve. There’s no real reason why Apple can’t simply ship the OS X Server features as an add-on pack instead of as a completely separate OS.
Furthermore—and this is the important part—the view of clients and servers that the division of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server addresses is one from the 1990s. That was a world where organizations had services hosted in their own data center on their own equipment and they controlled the clients as well. As for the rest of us, most of us just had a single PC or Mac and networking simply meant talking to the Internet.
That world is long gone, at least anywhere outside of the big ol’ Enterprise that has always wanted to treat their PC infrastructure like 3270 terminals. Organizations in the new world are comfortable putting services into the cloud and happy not to control all the devices their users are using. At the individual level, we all have multiple computers and devices that should all work together much better than they do now.
In this world, especially in Apple’s marketplace, Mac OS X Server as a separate product no longer makes any sense. Instead, it makes a lot more sense for some of the services in Mac OS X Server—iCal, AddressBook, and Mail services—to go into a data center somewhere. Others, such as Podcast Producer and advanced file sharing, are things that can be either baked into the client version or provided through add-on packages available for download.
All of this is speculation, of course. I might be just projecting how I’d do it myself if I were in charge of Apple’s server strategy onto the tea leaves. We’ll find out soon enough.
Response to Feedback
Some quick Twitter feedback points out that there’s a Mini server and a Mac Pro server. What about them? My answer is that Apple sells systems with iLife and the like pre-installed. Why not optional Server packages on some products? It’s all the same from a manufacturing and fulfillment standpoint. Take this hardware, add these packages, and ship.
As far my statement about viewing OS X Server as a set of packages, Thomas Brand tweeted that while he was at Apple, the server functionality was indeed distributed as an add on package. There ya go.
Others point out that they think it’s important for Apple to keep a Server product alive as a separate SKU for integration ease. That’s quite possible. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m playing the speculation game here and that there’s a high chance I’m effectively smoking crack for some reason I’m not taking into consideration. Then again, I’m just saying it’s possible. I am stopping short of a full-bore prediction. For now.