About Windows Home Server
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 9th, 2007 1:43 am 
Nobody could ever accuse Microsoft of embellishment.
Because when I first heard the term Windows Home Server, I was thinking it was something I could use to host a Fortune 500 site from an ugly box in my closet. Well, ugly it ain’t. The design is positively iPodesqe, including a Jobsian lack of things to press. CrunchGear sums it up:
This cylindrical, glowing piece of machinery is basically an easy to use, plug ‘n play server for the family. You can share all your movies, pictures, music, files, etc. with up to 10 users wirelessly and can access your files anywhere in the world via a free personalized domain.
A rep tells us that the device has internal drives, but the storage capacity differs. Microsoft is actually using these as OEM devices and customizing them to different manufacturers needs. HP is releasing their version in Q2 this year with a storage capacity between 500GB and 1TB. There’s also four USB ports and three extra drive bays in case you pirate you run out of storage. Price? Rumors are that it’ll be in the $500-ish zone.
Ouch. 1TB of storage is what makes the price point palatable, but the basic problem of storing documents across your home and work machines (which has existed since time immemorial) calls for a solution that’s a good deal cheaper than $500. Lately I’ve taken to using Google Docs & Spreadsheets to edit basic documents I work on heavily both at work and home but really this is limited to Word docs. The Google suite is not a good substitute for Excel and no substitute at all for PowerPoint.
If OpenOffice really wanted to play against Redmond, they’d enable a direct save to Web. Unlike Google Docs, it is ready for prime time, and users have been more than willing to adopt non-browser apps for Web-based work.
Tagged: ces2007 
google docs microsoft windows home server
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