OS X 10.6 to include Exchange support, ship in "about a year"

Oh, this will be good. Serlet is a funny guy. Combine that with a new OS and you'll get a good result. I'll be interested to watch this, hopefully it's posted on apple.com either tonight or tomorrow. Or on iTunes as one of the conference sessions.

From the Engadget Live Blog,

"Bertrand Serlet will give you a sneak peak at the next version of OS X called Snow Leopard."

I expected this to be at the end of the keynote, apparently it was a separate track...

lets not jump to any conclusions now (LEAP)

Sky Blue said:

The front page says this session is covered by an NDA

boooo

Click to expand...

Yeah but this may bring us back to the good old days of leaked screenshots of changes to the OS. If you ask me, that was more exciting than having Apple blurt it all out on stage and making us wait for what we know will be coming.

I really hope someone is nice (and brave) enough to release some info and screenshots. I'm really interested to see what's going on in that area.

http://www.apple.com/ca/press/2008_06/snow_leopard.html

Get it while you can.

Apple Previews Mac OS X Snow Leopard to Developers

SAN FRANCISCO—June 9, 2008—Apple® today previewed Mac OS® X Snow Leopard, which builds on the incredible success of OS X Leopard and is the next major version of the world’s most advanced operating system. Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation. Snow Leopard is optimized for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime® X. Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and is scheduled to ship in about a year.

“We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”

Snow Leopard delivers unrivaled support for multi-core processors with a new technology code-named “Grand Central,” making it easy for developers to create programs that take full advantage of the power of multi-core Macs. Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard. Furthering OS X’s lead in 64-bit technology, Snow Leopard raises the software limit on system memory up to a theoretical 16TB of RAM.

Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone™, Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, which optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback. Snow Leopard also includes Safari® with the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever, increasing performance by 53 percent, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive.*

For the first time, OS X includes native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 in OS X applications Mail, iCal® and Address Book, making it even easier to integrate Macs into organizations of any size.

*Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection and other factors. Benchmark based on the SunSpider JavaScript Performance test on an iMac® 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Mac OS X Snow Leopard, with 2GB of RAM.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Press Contact:
Jennifer Hakes
Apple
jenniferh@apple.com
(408) 974-7439

Simon Atkins
Socratic Communications
simon@socratic.net
(416) 367-8251

© 2008 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, QuickTime, iPhone, Safari and iCal are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Now for Macs that have more then 2 cores that anyone can afford. 🙄

Guess Microsoft Exchange 2007 is one more step into getting a better foothold in the enterprise.

Probably a couple MS technologies lacking still...

Please make your way over to the official thread...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/496721/

Not much detail in the press release, but what they say makes it sound like 10.5.8 or so.

Interesting that they don't mention intel only. I wonder if that's not true, or if they're just saving the bad news for later. No mention of pricing (free? cheap?) either - people aren't going to want to pay for this, not much at least.

And while it looks like mostly under the hood stuff, it sure looks like it will have some new features, at least for developers. I'd be really surprised if apps that take advantage of the new 10.6 stuff don't run on 10.5.

So when is the afternoon session? I want to hear more details about this.