Small business network w/ or w/o OSX Server?

Question

I have a small business with two employees and an intern computer station and we are badly in need of a better networking situation. Currently we have two ibooks that connected together in a LAN, and a powerbook at a remote location that is not part of the network. I need a way to connect all three computers together so we can share files efficiently and without the constant permissions problems that we are currently having with the two computers. In the current setup, one of the ibooks is the server/workstation 1, and the second ibook is workstation 2. Clearly I need to get a dedicated machine to function as a server, and I thought it would make sense to get OSX server.
However, when I went to the apple store to talk to a mac genius about it, the person I talked to told me that it didn't make sense to get OSX Server with my needs; I should just get a imac running Tiger (which is what all the workstations are running) and use it as a server by creating an admin account that the three users have access to. He also said that a mac mini wouldn't be fast enough for this purpose, I should get at least an iMac G5 or Intel iMac.
So here are my questions:
1) Will this work? If I create an admin account on a central server machine, can three users log onto it simultaneously to access documents? They won't need to run applications from the server, and the document types they will be running will be almost entirely Word, Excel, or Filemaker (nothing too intensive).
2) Will there be issues with multiple users opening documents at once?
3) How can remote logon work to this server? Unfortunately the network doesn't have a fixed IP adress.
4) What's the best solution for shared calendaring, preferably one that syncs to Palm devices?
5) Is a dual-core iMac the slowest machine that this setup should work on? Will it be fast enough?
Any ideas/advice would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

However, when I went to the apple store to talk to a
mac genius about it, the person I talked to told me
that it didn't make sense to get OSX Server with my
needs; I should just get a imac running Tiger (which
is what all the workstations are running) and use it
as a server by creating an admin account that the
three users have access to. He also said that a mac
mini wouldn't be fast enough for this purpose, I
should get at least an iMac G5 or Intel iMac.
So here are my questions:
1) Will this work? If I create an admin account on a
central server machine, can three users log onto it
simultaneously to access documents?
yes they can however to avoid the permission issues you would be best using a piece of shareware called Sharepoints in order to create shared folders or volumes in the same way OSX server does.
They won't need
to run applications from the server, and the document
types they will be running will be almost entirely
Word, Excel, or Filemaker (nothing too intensive).
2) Will there be issues with multiple users opening
documents at once?
there may be issues if 2 users opened the same document at once if they both need to write changes to the document. If 2 users opened the same document just to read it that would be no problem.
In my experience opening a shared spreadsheet will be locked as read only if another user is already editing it.
3) How can remote logon work to this server?
Remote login is done using a protocal called SSH. To learn how to setup SSH you can use this howto. You would need to configure the server with a fixed IP and do port forwarding from your router to that mac.
Unfortunately the network doesn't have a fixed IP
adress.
You can use a dynamic domain name check out dyndns.org.
) What's the best solution for shared calendaring,
preferably one that syncs to Palm devices?
Not sure I have never used a share calander.
5) Is a dual-core iMac the slowest machine that this
setup should work on? Will it be fast enough?
I used a 450mhz cube for 5 years as my file server, mail server, web server etc it is now all running on a 1.2 ghz g4 mac mini.
I use the mini without a monitor. I log in via ssh and run a VNC client over the ssh tunnel.