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Salivary glands and MacOS X Server : The Xclave recaps
MacWorld San Francisco 2000
by: Mark J. Hershenson (markhers@macnn.com)
There aren't too many times in Apple's recent history when
announcements of announced products get much news beyond Apple
afficiandos loving that they get to see more of the product. Such
announcements in the past, such as MacOS 9, have been well received by
the community, but have not particularly made a buzz around town with
non-Apple users.
However, after the keynote speech, Apple Computer Inc. made everyone
in the industry stand up and say wow. And they did. Willingly.
Basic Apple info
The keynote opened with Jobs announcing that Apple shipped
1.35 million units last quarter, the most in any quarter in Apple's
history. That's "one Mac [sold] every 6 seconds." He also
went over a lot of the information Apple has been collecting on the
new buyers of their products, and showed that Apple's products are
very Internet-oriented in the eyes of consumers.
The popularity of the iBooks and PowerBooks have raised Apple's
portable market share to its highest levels ever. Sales of the iMac
and PowerMac G4 are also humming right along, and with the immediate
availability of the 22" Apple Cinema Display, PowerMac G4 sales
might rise immediately.
While Jobs didn't divulge any of the financials he usually
covers, Jobs did speak very positively about Apple's current
position.
New products/announcements/rehashes
Jobs moved on to announce a number of new products
announced or available at the expo:
- IBM's ViaVoice - IBM's real-time, continuous voice
recognition for the Mac. Available now all over the place.
- MS InternetExplorer 5 - will not ship for a month or so, but
is 50% faster, and more intuitive
- AppleWorks 6 - 100 new features, shipping next month for $79,
with a new UI and additional functionality
- Scalar's USB Microscope for the Mac
- VST's new 100GB portable FireWire RAID array - 4 25GB drives.
Powered by either a PowerBook battery, or a wall plug.
- Canon has a new USB scanner for the Mac with NO additional
power supply, only required power it can draw from the computer
via the USB port.
Jobs also touched on AirPort, and it's benefits for users who
want to use speedy wireless data transmission, as well as the ease
of use and popularity of iMovie, the software which allows iMac DV
users to create home movies on their computer. Jobs said that 10% of
all iMac DV users have made an iMovie already (it's only been out
for a short while), and more than 33% of iMac DV owners plan to do
so in the near future.
Jobs also showed off an iMovie created by one of Apple's
managers, which showed how easy and great you can produce wonderful
movies on your own computer.
Beyond software, Apple is adding to its Think Different
advertising campaign, by adding to the lineup of film directors. The
directors will be Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplain, Stanley
Jubrick, and Francis Ford Coppolla. Directly after this, Jobs showed
off a few commercials Apple is preparing for TV ads.
Apple's new internet strategy
Jobs said there were four essential pieces for Apple's
future:
- QuickTime
- the second most used streaming-media player (33% market
share) to RealPlayer with a 50% share, according to a Nielsen
poll
- Akamai - Apple's $12.5 million investment in Akamai has
become worth $1 billion since Akamai went public
- CoreOS (MacOS 9)
- Sherlock 2
- multiple users
- keychain
- auto-updating over the Internet
- 1 million copies sold in 60 days
- Apple.com
- Gets 1.5 million visitors daily, 9.5 million each week
- The Apple Store
- Apple's online store sells more than $1 billion yearly,
and over $300 million over the holidays. And the whole Apple
Store runs on MacOS X Server running WebObjects
In moving forward, Jobs announced a redesign of Apple.com, which
will help vistors to the site naviagate more efficiently, while
still adding strategic value to the site.
- iTools
- E-mail: Free e-mail address @mac.com
- KidSafe: A free, downloadable plug-in for use with MacOS 9
which will keep children from browsing to unacceptable
sites
- iDisk: A free 20MB "disk" hosted by Apple for you to save
your own pictures, iMovies, or whatever else you want to store
on it
- HomePage: Your own, free, Apple-hosted web page which can
be customized however you wish
- iCards
- A collection of online, customizable, WebObjects-driven
e-cards, featuring a number of different types of cards. You
can address it to whomever you please, customize the message,
and pick which pictures you would like to be part of the
iCard.
- iReview
- A collection of thousands of Websites reviewed by Apple
staffers, and rated based on content. Apple will be working to
add thousands and thousands of more reviews in the near
future, and welcome people to sumbit sites they would like to
see reviewed.
In addition, the rest of most of Apple's sites (though not the
developer section or the TIL) has been transition to look like the
MacOS X interface, code-named Aqua. There is plenty of information
below on Aqua, so we won't go into that now. The new design does
look very nice, though it has raised the bandwidth required to view
Apple's site. (I personally have found that this new design doesn't
cache very well with Netscape Navigator 4 and Netscape Communication
4.7 under MacOS 9 - just my two cents on it…)
Apple has a new fave ISP
In a move viewed by many as a way of Apple keeping pace
with other computer manufacturers, it was announced that Apple has
decided to push the most "Mac-friendly ISP out there": EarthLink.
The choice came about after Apple tossed around partnerships with
AOL and MSN, but because of their long support for the Macintosh
platform, Apple chose EarthLink. For each new Mac user who signs up
for services with EarthLink, Apple will receive some money.
In addition to installing EarthLink connection software on all
new computers, Apple has also invested $200 million dollars in
EarthLink and will receieve a spot on the EarthLink board of
directors. As Jobs said, the partnership is a real one, and not just
an agreement to bundle EarthLike software.
Garry Betty, CEO, EarthLink came on stage to speak about the
deal, and seemed genuinely excited by the combination of Apple and
EarthLink.
Jobs anticipates that Apple will be one of the 10 most profitable
Internet companies in the next few years because of this investment,
and Apple's investments in their on-line offerings.
MacOS X Server update?
The Apple Store also got a re-design, and now features
PowerMacintosh G4's available with a "new" version of MacOS X Server
installed on them. This new version, of course, is the long-awaited
1.2 upgrade to MacOS X Server, and is currently shipping on outgoing
hardware from Apple's warehouses, and new copies of MacOS X Server
are 1.2. However there are no immediate announcements of a 1.0 ->
1.2 upgrade, but this should come within the week.
Reports around the Net state that PowerMac G4's ordered with
MacOS X Server have been shipped, received, and work well. In
addition, others have been able to purchase new copies of MacOS X
Server 1.2.
There will be some sort of upgrade path from MacOS X Server 1.0-2
to version 1.2, though the timetable and method have yet to be
announced.
The 1.2 upgrade features additional support for PowerMac G4's,
newer iMacs, Bronze PowerBooks, as well as speed gains, and much
much more. And according to a report on StepWise,
there are also updates to WebObjects. Some previous goals for the
update have been improved filesharing, newer version of Apache,
improved client capacity, and NetBoot fixes. We will have more on
this when we receive more information.
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