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OS X Server 10.5 Leopard is designed to exemplify Apple's renowned ease of use with new Server Assistant and Server Preference features to enable small businesses and workgroups to take full advantage of the benefits of a server without an IT department.

Leopard Server introduces iCal Server, to share calendars, schedule meetings and plan events and Spotlight Server, an extension of Apple's search technology that searches content on servers and clients across an entire network; and Podcast Producer, to automate Podcast production.

iCal Server uses the open CalDAV standard for integration with calendar applications, including iCal 3 in Leopard, Mozilla's Sunbird, OSAF's Chandler and Microsoft Outlook. Leopard Server also includes a wiki server to make it easy for teams to create and share information through their own shared website, and provides Web-based access

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to shared resources such as team calendars, blogs and podcasts.

Leopard Server features a new setup interface with built-in Network Health Check, a new Server Preferences administration interface and automatic client setup support. This automatically configures client Macs running Leopard so that they can use the server for all essential services, including file and printer sharing, Mail, iCal, iChat, Address Book and backup.

Core services include Apache 2, MySQL 5, Postfix, Cyrus, iChat Server and QuickTime Streaming Server, all of which are now 64-bit. Leopard Server is also fully 32-bit compatible and can run 32-bit and 64-bit applications natively side-by-side.

Other new features include: Mail Clustering for higher availability and reliability when used with Xsan, Apple's clustered file system for storage area networks; iChat Server 2 with instant message federation that lets users communicate with GoogleTalk and other XMPP instant messaging systems; QuickTime Streaming Server 6 with support for 3GPP Release 6 bit rate adaptation for smooth streaming when delivering content to mobile phones regardless of network congestion; new Adaptive Firewall technology to actively monitor for attacks and proactively block individual hosts from connecting to the server; and Xgrid 2 featuring GridAnywhere for distributed computing in environments without dedicated controllers with Scoreboard for prioritising job distribution to the fastest available CPU.