"OS X Server is unproven in critical, high-availability, and large-scale deployments. It's an enterprise wannabe."

OS X Server may actually be an enterprise "don't-wannabe." Apple has lowered its sights with a server campaign that runs under the tag line, "No IT department required." Small and midsize businesses are Apple's server target.

No wonder. Apple's track record in the enterprise is not exactly stunning. OS X couldn't get sufficient uptake from ISVs on whose applications enterprises rely. Windows, established RISC UNIX, and Linux already fill the top three spaces in the market.

Yet Apple's pursuit of UNIX certification for OS X Leopard bodes well for the future. Today, native commercial software must be adapted to and separately validated on the Mac, but if OS X passes the full UNIX-compliance suite, ISVs will be a recompile away from delivering OS X server software.

Meanwhile, a clutch of high-profile customers running Xserve and Xserve RAID bolster Apple's enterprise credentials. Several broadcasters, including CNN, use Mac enterprise gear to create, store, and air content. The U.S. military hauls Mac servers into the field and out to sea. Mac systems are widely deployed in academia, medicine, high-performance computing, science, film, and other fields where one server failure is cause for hauling a machine to the curb.