Windows Home Server goes RTM at last'¦

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 17 July 2007 17:01

Opinion and Analysis

It’s official: Windows Home Server has gone RTM and will be on sale well in time for the end-of-year buying season, giving PC users good reasons to buy and install yet another copy of Windows in their home.

The latest entry at the official Windows Home Server blog heralds the release of the Windows Home Server 1.0 software to manufacturing, with OEM products set to hit store shelves in the next few months, and major vendors soon to release custom Windows Home Server (WHS) systems.

A 120-day evaluation version will soon be available for tech-savvy users to test out for themselves, while French, German and Spanish versions are soon to be as finalized the
English version.

Companies such as HP, Gateway, Lacie and Medion, who have already announced WHS based products, but the blog entry welcomes Fujitsu-Siemens and Iomega as two new major partners who will also release WHS units. .

WHS allows up to 10 Windows XP or Vista systems to connect to a home network, offering all those PCs a combination of storage, backup, sharing, searching - even when offsite, thanks to planned Windows Live integration, giving you access to your data over the Internet when you’re not physically there.

Promising to be a simple experience, WHS is built atop of Windows Server 2003, and according to the blog, has been in development in different ways since 1999, with the current effort the fourth time the WHS project has been started, the first time it was truly taken seriously and the first time a 1.0 product has been launched.

The blog entry says that the WHS team was given a toast at the RTM ship party by Charlie Kindel, GM, Windows Home Server who said that “It started with a vision that an always available device on the home network was an essential ingredient of a Microsoft platform for the home. The result was an ambitious, yet pragmatic product plan that would deliver real value to consumers. We formed a team of extremely passionate, diverse, and hard working people. Some will say we had great luck but we know the best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself. We had a spirit of getting it done, no matter what”.

Kindel continued that: “We broke some rules but never any laws. A community of highly enthusiastic customers rose around us. We made them part of the development process and rewarded them and they amplified our efforts.  We made some mistakes…and corrected them. We took a few risks…and they paid off.  In April 2005 we said we’d ship V1 in the first half of 2007. It wasn’t always easy and it wasn’t always fun, but we said what we were going to do and then we did it. You know what they say…the fourth time’s a charm. Congratulations and thanks for helping ship the coolest version of Windows ever: Windows Home Server”.

Developers are creating all kinds of add-ins for WHS, while user support was tremendous, with Kindel noting that over 100,000 people were part of the beta test program and community.

A high volume of forum discussions was acknowledged, as were the 1 million+ views per month of the official blog, with Kindel concluding that all of this attests “to the fact that Windows Home Server addresses a big need out there. The right product at the right time!”.

Kindel now wants a little time off, and we’re pretty sure he’ll get it!

All-in-all, WHS is a product that promises to make the management and backup of multiple PCs in the home a ‘set-and-forget’ type of affair, ensuring you’re kept backed up and ready to face a whole range of computing problems without needing to be a computer expert.

How successful WHS becomes is yet to be seen, but given the proliferation of computers in homes around the world, WHS does seem to be a product every Windows user needs, and ensures Microsoft not only has a brand new version of Windows to sell, but has an even better and more complete Windows story to sell consumers this Christmas/holiday season, where Microsoft will no doubt be hoping to get as big a boost from Vista – and WHS – as possible.