OSNews > Thread > "RE[4]: Questions?" by tomcat

Coming Soon: Microsoft Windows Home Server?

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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RE[4]: Questions?

by tomcat on Sat 6th Jan 2007 04:18 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Questions?"

Member since:
2006-01-06

I don't really see a lot of value in a specific home server product. It would be just as easy to create a network share on a desktop PC offering, for example, your MP3 collection. But, of course, understanding and setting up a network share isn't all that easy for the average user. So, perhaps what MS is going after is a simple network-connected hard drive that will automatically broadcast its presence, that will be discovered by clients that know what to look for, and which will offer more than basic file/print services; for example, streaming. Perhaps it's simply a small-scale webserver that supports WebDAV. That would solve a lot of problems.

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RE[5]: Questions?

by archiesteel on Sat 6th Jan 2007 05:11 in reply to "RE[4]: Questions?"

Member since:
2005-07-02

That would make a lot of sense...but again I fail to see what advantage MS would have over competitors. It would make more sense for a company like Linksys or D-link or other hardware vendors to have their own integrated solution.

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RE[6]: Questions?

by tomcat on Sat 6th Jan 2007 22:12 in reply to "RE[5]: Questions?"

Member since:
2006-01-06

I'm surprised you even have to ask that question. Microsoft often likes to get into niche markets early, before other competitors become entrenched and immovable. Some call this "First Mover Advantage". The real benefit here is that Microsoft gets to improve its client through auto-discovery of media shares. There's a lot of benefit in that. People are adding lots of storage to their private networks in order to accomodate an increasing amount of media (video, audio, pictures, etc). Plus, assuming that it becomes more prominent, Microsoft gets to influence the direction of streaming protocols, etc, which are vital for caching, playback, etc.

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