Apple to ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard to the Middle East by first week of September

Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange.

"Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever and we're happy to get it to users earlier than expected,"

said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering.

"For certain amount, Leopard users get a smooth upgrade to the world's most advanced operating system and the only system with built in Exchange support."

To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers refined 90% of the more than 1,000 projects that make up Mac OS X. Users will notice refinements including a more responsive Finder; Mail that loads messages up to twice as fast; Time Machine with an up to 80% faster initial backup; a Dock with Expose integration; QuickTime X with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video; and a 64-bit version of Safari 4 that is up to 50% faster and resistant to crashes caused by plug ins. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed.

For the first time, system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal , iChat and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard's support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) provides a revolutionary new way for software developers to write applications that take advantage of multicore processors. OpenCL, a C-based open standard, allows developers to tap the incredible power of the graphics processing unit for tasks that go beyond graphics.

Snow Leopard is the only desktop operating system with built in support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and it allows you to use Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal to send and receive email, create and respond to meeting invitations, and search and manage contacts with global address lists. Exchange information works seamlessly within Snow Leopard so users can also take advantage of OS X only features such as fast Spotlight searches and Quick Look previews.

Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard, the next major release of the world's easiest to use server operating system, will also go on sale across the Middle East through Arab Business Machine Ltd (ABM)'s network of Apple Authorized Premium Resellers, Apple Authorized Resellers and Apple Authorized Retailers.

Snow Leopard Server includes innovative new features such as Podcast Producer 2 and Mobile Access Server and is priced more affordably than ever with unlimited client licenses. More information and full system requirements for Snow Leopard Server can be found at www.apple.com/server/macosx/.

Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard by first week of September through Arab Business Machine Ltd (ABM)'s network of Apple Authorized Premium Resellers, Apple Authorized Resellers and Apple Authorized Retailers in Lebanon, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen & the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.