Servers in the home remain scarce

With its first update to Windows Home Server, Microsoft has fixed a critical bug that threatened to undermine the product's main utility--securely and reliably backing up computer files.

But the software maker still has to find an answer to the bigger problem--many consumers have no idea what a server is and fewer still have any reason to think they would want one in their home.

Microsoft tried to make fun of the notion of a home server with a faux children's book. However, it faces the real challenge of trying to convince consumers that they want to install a server at home.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft knew it would face this challenge even before Bill Gates announced the product at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show. It even tried to make light of the issue, penning a fake children's book dubbed "Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?"

Unfortunately, the child's question is still a prescient one. For many who need to back up their files, network-attached hard drives offer a less costly and intricate answer to installing even a simplified Windows Server. As a result, the product has proved to be a tough sell.

"This is a very difficult product category to be selling," said Forrester Research analyst J.P. Gownder. "Consumers, generally speaking, don't know what a home server is."

Microsoft insists that its sales, as of June, remained ahead of internal targets, though it won't give any specifics. Home Server marketing executive Steven VanRoekel told CNET News in January that as of that point, the product's sales had reached the tens of thousands. It's not clear whether they have advanced far, if at all, into the next order of magnitude.

IDC is projecting that home servers, including those running Linux, will only add up to 78,000 devices this year. "We have it growing fairly modestly," said IDC analyst Richard Shim, noting that IDC is forecasting the home server category will only get to 1.1 million devices by 2012.

Microsoft has also failed to get much excitement from within the industry over its approach to home servers. The only big-name U.S. computer maker that uses the operating system is Hewlett-Packard, which sells the MediaSmart server.

Retailers have had a tough time trying to come up with a sales pitch that works in-store. As a result, the product is mostly sold online.

"It's basically Circuit City and online," said Forrester's Gownder. "You are not seeing it on store shelves."

Select Best Buy stores are also selling HP's home server, although the No. 1 electronics retailer has not broadly started carrying the product.

Microsoft Senior Product Manager Joel Sider said the company expected it to take time to gain support both in the industry and with consumers, but said the company hopes to see additional makers add Home Server products in the coming year.

"It is a new product category," he said. "The awareness is growing at a good, steady pace."

Fixing the data corruption bug was an important step, Sider said. "Certainly it's great to get that behind us and continue moving on."

Microsoft's target group is people with a home network, more than one PC and a lot of music, video, photos, and other files that they want to share. The problem, Gownder said, is that only the techiest of that bunch even know that a server could be the best answer. And even among those, Microsoft hasn't yet clearly demonstrated why it is better than other options, such as adding an external hard drive or network storage or using an online service.

The selling point of Windows Home Server is supposed to be its ability to do other things, but thus far, there has not been the proverbial "killer app."

"It solves an interesting problem in the home but its potential remains in the future," Gownder said. Among the things that Gownder said could boost adoption of Windows Home Server is if it could offer a simpler way to get commercial video, say, from Netflix or the cable company.

On that front, though, devices such as Apple TV and Microsoft's Xbox seem to have more traction. Others have taken a different approach on the backup front as well, such as Apple, which offers desktop-based backup through Time Machine and cloud-based storage via MobileMe. Microsoft, for its part, also has cloud-based options including Windows Live SkyDrive and Live Mesh.

If Windows Home Server is to stand out, Shim said, Microsoft must make Windows Home Server more like Windows is on the desktop--a place where lots of applications flourish.

"The only reason Windows is so popular and important is there are a ton of people developing for it," Shim said. Microsoft points out that there are already more than 60 applications made for Windows Home Server, with more in the works.

[pmnb]

The "killer app" for Home Server is not an app at all, but rather the ability to centrally manage family members profiles and access, and to allow these profiles to roam from one home computer to another. I would buy a home server for this ability alone. As you clearly state, there are many other ways of dealing with backup and file sharing, but centralized administration is a tough nut to crack without OS support.

[Penguinisto]

Meh - I just do my own. Cheaper and easier that way (and I can use Linux to do it without having to pay some software company a vig just to get what I want).

[Laserdisc]

@Penguinisto
Cheaper yes, easier?... not for the average user. Sorry lad we live in a Windows world. Sad.

[Penguinisto]

Define "easier"... a typical teenager can rig up the requisite bits and bobs (and there are even entire distros built for the purpose). The best part is, there's no DRM involved. ;)

[DrtyDogg]

I've never met any teenager that can make a file server/automated backup server with file duplication across multiple hard drives/web server with web site allowing remote access to files and connected computers etc. in the same 30 minutes it takes to install and configure WHS. Ask a typical teenager what RAID is and they'll reply "a bug spray"

I just don't get it, "home server'" I mean. With the price of gasoline approaching $4.35 a gallon who needs to spend several hundred dollars for such a limited use appliance? If you can't pop open a blu-ray case and walk 10 feet to put it in the player to save that cost you are more of a geek than Linus Torvolds. This is just more of marketing trying to create a need rather than fulfilling a real, existing one. A home server for $20 bucks? I'll take two. Other than that, keep them.

[markdoiron]

The Killer App that MS Won't Provide: Something to rip DVDs/Blu-ray to a hard drive so I use the disk only to upload the content, then after that I only need to save the disk for "reinstallation." The studios would have kittens if MS did this, and we all know MS culture is has historically supported overly restrictive DRM. But, that's what I want of my home server. BTW: I know there are after-market products. They are for techies. I'm talking something akin to WMP, which does provide easy ripping of CDs to .mp3 without additional software.

[Dead Soulman]

It'd never happen. The only way you'd get that would be from someone else. MS won't do that because, unfortunately, MS is a big fan of DRM.

[kuzma77]

Exactly! Something akin to how Kaleidescape works but does not cost $10,000 plus a subscription. And it has to work wtih Blu-ray movies. Allow users to browse their entire movie library from any TV in the home in a graphical way.

[Imalittleteapot]

I could think of many uses for a home server. Just a few are automatic backups. Media access from any device in the house. You could run applications remotely from any device. Have it automatically configure your network/firewall/security policies/user configurations for every device. It could download all your updates to deploy them to every device instead of bandwidth wasting multiple downloads, and if programmed right, every web page visit and internet download could be cached at the server instead of the local machine. If you've already watched a YouTube video on one device then why download it again for a second machine? That's just a few. Problem is Home Server probably doesn't even do all that. If Microsoft can't even figure out what you're supposed to be doing with it then they've got a problem. It's their product. They're the ones that should be explaining this, not me. Here's another problem. I can think of a million things I could do with a home server, but I can't think of a single reason why I NEED a home server. Want yes, need no. There's just simply cheaper ways of doing things. They may not be as convenient, but selling stuff people don't really need is getting harder and harder. Worse, it's really a rip off. They could just have coded a background service that ran on any normal Windows PC that you designate as your server turning it into a server and a regular desktop at the same time. There's no reason to have a whole different type of computer and operating system to pull this off. Anyway, I gotta go. I just got a great idea for an open source project.

[joetesta70]

It's only been 6 months since it's release. It's an awesome product (no issues for me on 3 computers since the latest service pack) but I agree that MS needs to put A LOT more behind the product (i.e. compelling consumer-facing applications instead of the open-source feel of current add-ins) to help the average consumer understand why they could use one.

[Dead Soulman]

I agree. MS needs to put more effort into WHS. But, I think they don't want people to leave Windows Media Center for WHS. Some of the add-ins being used today are created by fans rather than MS, which is a bit pathetic considering MS' size. I'm using the TiVo add-in which works like a charm.

[mikebegert]

Here's a thought. How about selling the software, so that people can take one of their old boxes, stick a big drive in it, and use that instead of having to get a new computer just to run a server that they don't really need? Lots of us have an old P3 or 4 sitting around that would be perfect. Very few people need WHS bad enough to buy a new computer in order to get it. Typical of MS.

[Dead Soulman]

Plenty of people have done exactly that. Windows Home Server's requirements are so low that you can even use a P4 for it. You can grab your old pc, put in a large hdd and off you go. I decided to buy a new Dell server because I didn't have a spare old pc around and I couldn't be more pleased. I'm not an MS fan. I hate them for a lot of their practices. Even with some of its limitations, I still enjoy having WHS in my house.

[Penguinisto]

...Vista's hardware specs are reason enough as to why that won't happen.

[bbftu919]

Go to Newegg and buy the software. I did and put it on my old PC. Have added several hard drives since, mostly old ones that were in other machines that I upgraded - very flexable system.
As far as the comment on Vista specs, clearly this is coming from an uneducated person just taking shots. Home Server is not based on Vista and the hardware requirements are low.

I am not a techie and find Home Server easy to use. It saved me several times, as school software messed up machines in my house. In no time, I reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled the prior day's back up and was up and running. All my home PC's are automatically backed up every night.

[Imalittleteapot]

Actually I think you can get a free trial here.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/eval.mspx
to see if it works.
Then you can purchase an OEM copy from a site like tigerdirect.com or newegg.com. Just Google Windows home server OEM. Should come right up. Anyone can buy OEM you just can never legally transfer it. Plus, you don't get the pretty box, but for WHS there is no pretty box so I guess it doesn't matter.

[jandc2004]

This is potentially a huge market and, although I am a big fan of MS, I am disappointed that time and time again they totally either get it wrong, fail to understand or simply let a good idea die when it comes to the entire IPTV, Home Media, Home Server & Media Centre concepts.

I have 15 years background in Broadcasting and some 20 years in Internet technologies and the potential of this market just screams out at me - and I so wish they would get their act together because I think you could make a good living installing and maintaining this stuff - but I honestly don't think they 'get it' at MS. This whole area seems to be a place where MS is rudderless or have lost their way and it simply staggers me when you consider the billions that could be made from it. I see products coming out these days from the likes of Sony, a company who understand the Home consumer market, and others and you can see them already begining to leave MS behind them in the dust.

Truth be told, I think there are one or two departments in MS that either need a good clear out or a good kick up the backside to get their act together!

[bbftu919]

A lot of complaining but no suggestions on "how to get it right" What did they get wrong with Home Server? How should they fix it?

[private-internet]

The reason why it is not successful is because no one wants to be a system admin. You have to understand the mindset of the consumer and user - not just from a technical perspective.

[ballssalty]

P3's won't work. At least mine wouldn't. I tried it with a Dual 1GHZ P3 system. It would lock up upon beginning the WHS boot up to install.

[DrtyDogg]

I'm running WHS on a PIII 1GHz Dell. I just upgraded the ram and add some storage, works like a champ. This is the same system I used for the beta tests, so it has had the installation done 3 times.

[bobcode]

A fusion of AppleTV and TimeMachine with deckstop management might gain traction.

[Laserdisc]

Part of the problem I think is the sales force at these stores, when I inquire about the HP Media Server the floor staff are clueless... even the boys at Geek Squad found it difficult to explain outside the scope that it's a file server. Whose fault is it? I couldn't tell you but one things for sure the information simply isn't getting out there.

[thedreaming]

Microsoft's problem with this product is lack of advertising. I've only heard about it because of the various tech podcasts which I watch/listen to, but on the street, I've seen about one or two tv ads, no radio ads, and no print ads. How are people supposed to know about it if they don't advertise it?

[David Dudley]

Even after all these years, I find it hard to see Richard Shim as an analyst when I am used to Richard Shim being a writer at CNET.

[real_bgiel]

I think the tech-savy folks most likely to run a home server will not choose a Microsoft product. There are much better options (for those inclined) that are free.

[syssjr]

I think another key feature here, does not revolve around home server, but the functionality of extender boxes. Everyone has been waiting for Microsoft to come up with a solution to make a pc, whether Vista, or XP an extender for Media center. If one of the main Ideas behind home server is to let you share media via Media Player, then you need to have an extender to have full functionality. The same with media center. I have 5 Pc's within the house running Vista with media center, but there is no easy way to view the videos/pictures/music that is stored on the home server machine. I would have to buy an extender/tv for each room that has a pc. There should be an easier way for this to be done.

[markedman0965]

All you have to do is add the path to the server to the monitored folders in Windows Media Player. It will then show up in Media Center.

[kenny-J]

I'm what I would call an advanced user and would like the convienences of a home server. But, as one pointed out earlier, I don't want to be a sys admin, see too much trouble here at work. (Speaking of trouble, we just went to Office 2007, what a piece of junk completely new interface and doesn't play nice). But, I can't see enough advantages to invest the funds in another computer, and as I recall WHS is about $500. Besides that, it's MS.

[punterjoe]

Isn't the problem primarily a matter of semantics? If the book were "Mommy, why is there a client in the house?" would people be any less confused? If only MS could find a way to present this using a metaphor "regular" people understand, it would be a no brainer. People already buy storage sheds, expand closet space, cram their attics & cellars with their physical stuff... they're familiar with the concept. They just need to realize this is something they already understand & do everyday in other ways.

[inachu]

I would love to have this HOME SERVER in my home but I do know that:
A. I will have it secured down tighter than any server running at NSA and CIA HQ.
B. I would have to go into the attic and rerun some AC vents to the pc to keep it cool in a small closet.
C. I would run a tripple firewall setup.

all this for a server that is supposed to run all day non stop.

[technewsjunkie]

Only Microsoft with it's COMPLETE LACK OF IMAGINATION would come up with this idea as a way to enter the Living Room.

[DrtyDogg]

they have the 360 and media center for the living room, there are much better places to house a server than that.

[tomg4255]

I've had Mac OS X Server in the house for years. The problem is not ease of use, its lack of app support. The killer app in our house would be media management, specifically photos and to a lesser extent, music. Unfortunately apps like iPhoto and iTunes have no concept of home server/storage.

I'd pay good money for a storage device and a photo app that would automatically mirror and/or push photos we have on our systems to network storage. Then everyone in my family could access the same "shoebox". Alas no photo app has this ability.