IDGis InfoWorld on Monday released its list of 2006 Technology of the Year winners. Appleis Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" won best client operating system, as well as best server operating system, while the companyis Power Mac G5 Quad earned best workstation honors.
Of Tiger, Tom Yager wrote: "[Tiger] addresses productivity at the client and server level in ways that dig much deeper than Appleis trademarked glitz. That it makes the Mac give-to-your-grandmother easy goes without saying. But Tiger also strikes us as the first major release of a desktop OS in which the new features are targeted mainly at professional users."
On the server side, Mr. Yager said that Tiger "also stands along in its class, being the only full-power, undiluted, fully extensible, open and standards-based commercial OS that emerges from the box in a true turnkey state."
He added: "Whatever you donit find in Tiger you can pull down as open source and build, or buy from commercial vendors, including Oracle and Tibco. And hereis one feature Windows can never match: OS Xis kernel is open source as well."
With Microsoft slated to deliver Windows Vista by the end of 2006, Mr. Yager said that "the battle between Apple and Microsoft will be the one to watch."
The writer also listed "the magic of OS X" among the reasons the Power Mac G5 Quad was selected best workstation of the year. He added that the system "boasts impressive hardware specs" at a sub-US$5,000 price point.
While Apple has selected Intel to provide the processors for its next generation of computers, Mr. Yager cited AMDis recent advances and said that "2006 and 2007 will leave us with a choice of x86 technologies born of brutal competition in engineering and price."