Mac OS X "Snow Leopard" will sync with Exchange 2007

This was a big day for Mac and iPhone users, with the 3G iPhone being announced at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2008 in San Francisco. Apple also announced the upcoming Mac OS X version 10.6, dubbed "Snow Leopard", that will be released in "about a year." According to their press release, "rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X." So it's basically a performance / bugfix release, rather than a release with major new features such as the Tiger to Leopard jump, hence the name "Snow Leopard." Personally, I wouldn't have called it that, especially for the sake of the non-Apple techs whom I'm sure already have a hard time keeping up with the different cat names for the various Mac OS X releases. :) I've even met Mac users who are not sure what OS X version (Tiger or Leopard) they're running on their Macs!

Though it's supposed to be a performance upgrade, another noteworthy item is that Snow Leopard will sync with Microsoft Exchange 2007 out of the box -- meaning that native Mac OS X apps like iCal, Mail, and Address Book will be able to talk to Exchange. This will be big news for Mac users in Exchange environments. While it looks like native sync'ing with Exchange would be a great alternative to using Entourage which is part of Microsoft Office for Mac, I think Microsoft Office for Mac will still be sticking around, since nothing currently comes close to it when it comes to working with Office files on the Mac, especially if you want to make sure your Office documents remain as compatible as possible with coworkers' on Windows.