S o, you think Rendezvous is kind of cute but not very useful? Perhaps you wonder why Apple has bothered with this technology when there are few apps and fewer pieces of hardware around to take advantage of it? Maybe you just wish someone would take the time to explain to you why Steve Jobs gets happy feet when he talks about Rendezvous?
Well, BusinessWeekis Alex Stalkever exposes some of the potential goodness behind Rendezvous in the latest Byte of the Apple article titled A Rendezvous with Redmond?. According to the column, points to ponder are ease of use, money savings, and new no-hassle ways to network. Mr. Stalkever explains:
In fact, in a perfect Rendezvous world, companies could not only reduce help-desk use but they also could hold down the cost of managing printer and file-sharing servers by using Rendezvous-ready software on the backend. Any changes to those systems get automatically broadcast to every machine on the network. No need for tech support to change settings on each desktop individually -- and another savings of time and money. Thatis just the tip of the money-saving iceberg -- and it illustrates why businesses should reconsider their PC choices in the next couple of years.
For example, Longmont (Colo.) network storage device maker, Chapparal, has built Rendezvous into its latest version storage-management software. So now the info-tech guy configuring a network to back up its contents to the storage device can do so with zero tweaking. Point, click, configure -- thatis all there is to it.
Hereis another example: Database outfit Sybase ( SY ) has built Rendezvous into its client software. This allows authorized Apple machines to log into Sybase databases without any additional configuration -- one less task for a database administrator.
The BusinessWeek article is a good read so stop by and check it out.