Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 5th Jan 2007 23:25 UTC
"There's been radio chatter this week of a possible new addition to the Windows family: a 'Home Server'. If the chatter is right, Microsoft will unveil it at CES, which kicks off next week. 'Home Server', according to my sources, is about centralized storage, home automation and security."
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Even more than SBS, any home version of Windows Server would be so heavily crippled from a license point of view to protect more expensive products that it would be of little practical use to anyone, particularly those with the wherewithall who are running their own home servers already.
The home entertainment market just isn't as lucrative as they think either. For the home media market to take off there will have to be a free flow of content to make it worth anyone's effort, and thanks to DRM, Microsoft and the media companies, this isn't going to happen. Besides, if it isn't able to play DivX files and to share peoples' iTunes music (which they're not going to buy again), what use is it?
Think about it. The only reason why people and Microsoft are falling over themselves today talking about the digital home and digital convergence (whatever that may happen to mean), and Apple have the iPod, is because of a format called MP3 that took off some years ago that allowed people to amass large collections of music for practically nothing. You take that away and you are essentially locked into a system and a set of Microsoft developed DRM restrictions you can't escape from, in your own home no less, with none of the advantages that anyone thought they were going to get. Result? Stagnation. Just look at many Windows Media stores, and the complaints about them, today.
There's simply too much inertia from various interested parties to make it work on a wide scale.
"I want it to store all your media for your home…. to be able to network multiple Media Centers and PCs and save all your stuff on one back-end home server. That's what I've been dreaming about."
I stopped dreaming a few years ago mate. It's called MythTV, has a very large RAID array and it's worth my while because I can copy, record and do anything I want with it.
That's as good as the digital home is going to get, it's what people actually think that they're going to get - and Microsoft just can't provide it. It's that simple.
This is just Microsoft's attempt at lock-in for the home.
Edited 2007-01-06 01:40