InformationWeek

November 30, 1998

InternetView:
Apple's Mainstream Moves

By Jason Levitt

was discouraged the other day when I heard that Bay Networks would not support AppleTalk in its Extranet switches. It put a wrench in my scheme to run Quark CopyDesk remotely via a virtual private network between our production facilities in Manhasset, N.Y., and my office in Austin, Texas. It also brought into focus how support for Mac OS and AppleTalk has been fading from the mainstream IT desktop.

The good news is that Apple continues to downplay AppleTalk and move to peaceful coexistence with the TCP/IP and Intel world, just as Novell realigned its focus away from its IPX/SPX protocol in favor of pure TCP/IP. AppleTalk was a fine protocol for the slow, inexpensive LANs of the '80s, but it has a fixed packet size and speed limitations that make it difficult to use over WANs such as the Internet.

Mac OS 8.5 shows Apple's TCP/IP stack reaching maturity. The networking enhancements in Apple's Open Transport 2.01 include greater speed, DHCP fixes, and an SNMP Management Information Base II. On the server side, AppleShareIP 6.x now offers high-performance file sharing via AFP over TCP/IP and also does file and printer sharing with Windows machines via Server Message Block over TCP/IP.

Apple is gradually shoring up its client and server operating systems, but the long-term outlook is uncertain. It's been almost a year since I reviewed a developer pre-release of Rhapsody (Jan. 26, p. 63), the code name for what would have been Apple's next-generation operating system. Since then, Apple cancelled the Rhapsody release; that technology has been folded into Mac OS X (10) Server, which should ship as a developer release in January. On paper, Mac OS X Server, a hybrid of Mac OS and Next's OpenStep, has a lot going for it. It runs on the Mach Kernel so it can be easily ported to Intel machines (though it's now unclear whether Apple will ever offer it on Intel hardware), it can compile and run open-source Internet applications, and yet it should still run many existing Mac OS and OpenStep applications with few or no modifications. This hybrid approach will likely be confusing to prospective business customers, so it should be interesting to see how Apple pitches it at release time. Meanwhile, don't forget that Apple also offers Linux for PowerPC Macs (www.mklinux.apple.com).

With an installed base of some 30 million machines, Apple isn't just another PC company. But Apple's penetration in certain markets such as publishing and higher education won't make it sell in the enterprise. Shifting its operating system focus toward mainstream standards and peaceful coexistence is a good first step.

--You can read Jason Levitt's Internet Zone column on InformationWeek Online at www.informationweek.com/author/internet.htm