Jordan Hubbard, Appleis director of engineering for Unix Technologies, revealed that Mac OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard, is scheduled to ship during the first quarter of 2009. He shared that info during a presentation at the LISA i08 conference last week, according to Mac Rumors.

Mr. Hubbard was at the Large Installation System Administration, or LISA, Conference to talk about the Mac OS X path from servers to embedded platforms. During that talk, he discussed the release cycle for Mac OS X, and specifically mentioned the pending first quarter launch for Mac OS X 10.6.

Snow Leopard wonit add as many new features as other versions of the operating system have. Instead, Apple claims it is focusing on performance improvements and refinements.

A release earlier in the year also means thereis a chance that Apple could show off the operating system update during Macworld Expo 2009 at the beginning of January. Apple has historically used its keynote presentation to introduce new and updated products, typically with a special Steve Jobs flair.