Windows Home Server, a forthcoming software platform for backing up data on networked home computers, has garnered some new partners and will be made available to system builders. The news was revealed at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in May 2007, where Home Server was featured in Chairman Bill Gates's keynote address. The price and release date were not announced.

Hardware and Application Support

Announced at the Jan. 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Home Server will give consumers an easy way to back up their existing computers and store files—particularly digital audio and video—in a centrally accessible place. It will be sold only in conjunction with inexpensive "headless" servers lacking a monitor or keyboard and will provide automatic backup of Windows PCs, manual backup of computers running Mac OS X or Linux, shared access to digital media and other files, monitoring of networked PCs for problems such as lack of security software, and remote Web-based access to data stored on the Home Server. Although based on Windows Server 2003, it will be much simpler and will lack many traditional server functions—for example, it will not be able to serve as a domain controller or firewall and won't run applications such as Exchange.

For Microsoft, the product could convince many multi-PC households to add yet another Windows computer to their home, and it staves off a possible threat from similar storage devices running Linux.

At WinHEC 2007, Microsoft made several announcements about Home Server:

Hardware partners. In addition to Hewlett-Packard (HP)—the initial OEM announced at CES—Gateway, LaCie, and Medion will ship Home Server devices. Medion's Home Server device, demonstrated at WinHEC, will come with 500GB to 2TB of storage and will bundle PacketVideo Connect software, which will allow it to stream digital audio and video to networked receivers that are compliant with recent standards set by the Digital Living Network Association. HP demonstrated products, including photo- and media-sharing applications, it will ship with its Home Media Server. In addition, Microsoft confirmed that Home Server will be available through the system builder channel, allowing smaller OEMs and hobbyists to build their own servers with the OS. The first Home Server devices will appear by the end of 2007, and pricing for the devices is expected to start around US$500. However, Microsoft has not announced the price that system builders would pay for the OS alone.

Applications. Several ISVs announced that their applications will support Home Server, including F-Secure (security), Iron Mountain (data protection), and SageTV (digital video recording software, akin to Microsoft's own Media Center user interface for Windows). Microsoft has released an SDK for developers and has announced a Code2Fame challenge, which will offer prizes up to US$10,000 for the best Home Server applications.

Resources

Home Server was detailed in "Focus Moves Beyond PC at CES 2007" on page 37 of the Feb. 2007 Update.

Microsoft's Home Server page, including a link to the Code2Fame challenge, is at www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx.

The Home Server team maintains a blog at blogs.technet.com/homeserver.

The Home Server SDK is available at www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx.

The DLNA is at www.dlna.org.