Windows Home Server remains a tough sell
Microsoft has largely succeeded in getting a PC into the home, but its effort to put a server there will be an uphill battle.
Bill Gates announced the product to much fanfare at last year's Consumer Electronics Show. However, even folks who are bullish on the concept, such as Forrester Research analyst J.P. Gownder, say it's destined to be a niche product for years to come.
In a soon-to-be-published research report, Gownder figures that home servers (not just those running Microsoft's home server product) will reach 4.5 million households by 2012. That's up from just 190,000 such servers last year.
"That's a pretty good growth rate," Gownder said, though he added that "it's still a niche product, at that point," with his forecast representing home servers in only about 3 percent of American homes five years from now.
Gownder said the rise in multiple-PC homes, the increase of broadband, and the fact that people now store their music and photos on computers creates the necessary conditions for a home server to be practical. "We really are at a point in history where a home server might actually make sense," Gownder said.
But, he said, it's still a tough sell. Most people don't know what a server is. And even those who do have an understanding of servers from work may not have such a favorable impression. "They know that it goes down sometimes," Gownder said. "They know that it causes problems for them."
The one thing that could speed up the slow path to the mainstream, Gownder said, is if a cable company or other TV provider chose to deploy home servers as part of their service.
That concept is not so far-fetched, he said, given the fact that providers are having a tough time keeping up with on-demand TV requirements as content shifts to high definition. Such an approach could lead to growth 10 times what Gownder has forecast.
Microsoft has its own challenges with its Windows Home Server software. The company has struggled to get it into products and onto retail shelves. Hewlett-Packard delayed its shipment until late last year, and few other big-name computer makers have followed with products of their own.
The biggest recent news was negative, with the company announcing a bad bug that could lead to file corruption and data loss. Not exactly the kind of news that makes Middle America want to rush out and buy one.
Microsoft's Steven VanRoekel said the product's sales have exceeded the company's expectations, though he declined to give specific numbers.
"It's definitely tens of thousands," VanRoekel said, "which in a month and a half is good."
One area that Microsoft may look at to boost the popularity of the Home Server is having the software work better in households that have both Macs and Windows PCs.
"That's something we are taking a close look at," VanRoekel said, though he added that Microsoft has "nothing to announce."
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. View complete CES 2008 coverage from CNET.
2. Why do windows server? If I needed server like resources, I could do it with free software on xp or use a linux box to serve content.
3. Isn't it cheaper just to get a lot of the functionality from companies that provide the services hosted from a datacenter somewhere?
I like XP. It's easy to use. It runs my games and apps. However, I wonder why I need any of MS's recent software. Vista? Office 2007? Home Server? ... Not very exciting.
I bought it and so far like it very much.
Now if only Microsoft would combine Windows Home Server with a Media Center in a single package. That would be a KILLER product: Single storage and digital media solution with automatic backups, anti virus and I can stream my music and photos to my XBox360 Media Center Extender using the cool Media center user interface. That would totally kick ass.
But it rules even without the media center.
the percentage of Internet connected home Windows machines
infected with viruses and/or spyware as high as 90%.
Whether that exact number is correct or not, anyone that deals
with home computer users know that the majority of their
computers are in pitiful shape.
Rather than buy another Windows box I recommend some kind
of simple Network Attached Storage (NAS). I use an Apple
Airport Extreme Wireless router that allows me to share a printer
and hard drive to my Macs and PCs via its USB port. Linksys and
others offer similar products.
1) Plug in the power to the server, turn on.
2) Play the CD in each computer in your home.
Now if WHS support was built into Vista (which I could see people being angry about), it would be Plug in and go.
NAS is anything but simple, often having propritary software.
MS won't let you. Oh, in theory you can buy the software but in fact it's such a ***** to install that you're driven to buy a whole system. I think HP has one for $500-600; Velocity Micro has one for $800-900. When you can get a network appliance that will back everything up for a $150 or just hang a drive off your old PC for even less, why buy a new box?
A home server makes a lot of sense. I actually own something called Mirra that gives me most of the functionality. With one, you can network printers and drives, backup everything, access your data remotely (a godsend if you work in more than one place), put up data you want to share with others, store as much data as you want.... The list goes on. Once you have one you'll wonder how you did without it. But $600? Come on MS...make it a DIY project for the old machines we'd otherwise clog the junkyards with.
When MS makes this something that anyone smart enough to manage a home network can install on an old machine, then it has a business.
1) Take an old PC, put in a big hard drive(s) (250GB for $79 at Frys), load up Ubuntu or Suse Linux FOR FREE and you have a great "home" server that can store/serve files, play MP3s, pictures and videos, and even can act as a TIVO server.
2) Buy a NAS enclosure ($39) stick in a big hard drive (see above), plug it into your network and you are done. So simple.
Does anyone really wonder why Microsoft has not made any progress with their expensive "Home Server"? I hope it goes the way of Windows Media Center Edition - that is, they have to give it away as part of Vista...
How about taking care of web access?
RAID without the pain?
No, the only wonder is why idiots like you can't at least read a little of what something does before the knee-jerk 'it is from MS, must mindlessly bash' reaction.
And media center has been about as successful as OSX... Still want to call it a failure?
This can be done cheaper and easier. Anyone that says setting up a cheap box with Linux is hard is either an idiot and/or an astroturfer for MS.
It also doesn't solve the problem of losing your data in case of a fire or burglary.
In short there is no real reason for buying this unless you are totally clueless.
It really cant get much easier then this. I wouldnt say it's plug and play, but plug click and play.
2- It isnt much cheaper then getting a crappy NAS and linux box and attaching it yourself. Sure ya can but might for the effort, its not as easy and why bother with a linux box that really just gives you space and barely any features.
3- Um most things do have image backups and online differential storage is always an option with windows computers, how about with your linux nas box? ****!
In short, you're clueless.
computer to work with a Linux server, plus add to it a printer and
not to even say anything about streaming media. Get real!
About the printers,
In most distros its actually plug-n-play for most HP, Epson and Lexmark printers.
with a Windows SERVER, in the Living Room?!
MS may want to get in to the living room, but this isn't the way.
They should stick with X-Box as a pseudo server.
The HP version that is less than $600 is a looser product because it has only one physical disk drive which defeats the purpose of the redundancy.
I don't care so much about support for a MAC but how about backing up files (or at least being able to share them) on a windows 98 pc (where all of my photos are currently sitting on a second hard drive.)
The enthusiast sites all say that the HP machine out of the box is under configured and needs double the RAM.
Put out a decent box for $450 and I'll be the first one in line.
I've grown up with Windows. But despite 3 decades experience (I have worked in the business for 20 years - mostly COBOL), I just don't know where to start with server technology. I have my lean/mean laptop AND my (candidate) home-built high-powered tower system.
But I just don't know the differences & gaps with servers. So I don't ever have peer-2-peer connectivity. I generally email files between my 2 machines.
shared between multiple home PCs (read house full of teenagers,
young adults, knowledgeable adults, parents, etc.) you would fully
understand the convenience of a home server or at least p2p
connectivity w/wo broadband.
Man do you live in the dinosaur age or what.
For geeks, that's all cool and part of the fun. For the market that WHS appears to be marketed for, then no.
NAS is pretty common these days for storage. Those offer some decent solutions, but even there many require proprietary clients on each machine that connects to the unit.
For my needs, I use a NSLU2 that's been hacked with the unslung mod. It was neither easy, quick, or intuitive to do, but it was fun. That, with a pair of 500Gb HD's gives both my Macs and Windows machines network storage.
I like that unit a lot, but I wouldn't give the loose parts to my parents and expect them to be able to build the same box. WHS would be a better choice than any of the Linux solutions offered currently in that case.
This is definitely a niche product in a market that has plenty of room for all players. You don't have to treat it like a competition. People will use what works for them.
- Apple is pathetic
- by jabberwolf February 8, 2008 2:00 PM PST
- And Apple can't do anything it cant lie about first.
- Reply to this comment
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(48 Comments)I suppose you will tell us next that Apple had nothing to do with instituting DRM! lol ******* mactard, Apple is not an innovator, its an instigator but thinks of nothing new, brags alot about nothing, and complains about others like there is no tomorrow! Developers from software AND hardware hate Apple!
They couldnt even create their own OS they had to steal a FREE one(BeOS), stamp their name on it, and lock it to their computers to charge people more money!