If you remain to be convinced by Windows Home Server, Paul Thurrott’s review offers an enthusiastic, yet balanced view of its strengths and weaknesses… thanks for the shout-out, Paul.
Overall, WHS is a wonderful solution for problems you never knew you had. But make no mistake, these are very real problems that need to be addressed, and WHS does so in spectacular fashion. I’m looking forward to what the Home Server team does next, but even now in this initial release, they’ve spun some magic. Anyone who doubts whether innovation is alive and well at Microsoft simply needs to take a look at this product. Highly recommended.
More info: winsupersite.com
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Thurrott’s review is the only one I’ve seen that picks up on the fact that despite Microsoft trumpeting that WHS allows you to remotely access “any” home computer, you need to have the top end versions of XP and Vista in order to do so. I find this very irksome (see http://gcoupe.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!6AA39937A982345B!4387.entry ) and misleading marketing at its worst.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Surely you’re not surprised. MS is doing what they’re good at and that is using integration to sell more products and convince people to upgrade. To many end users it doesn’t sit well with them but from a business point of view you have to admire the way they pull it off so well. Capitalism at it’s best.
For me though I’m more interested in how the market responds to WHS. WHS is pricey considering you need to factor in the hardware. I’ll be shocked if there’s not a good response from the Linux community. Apple will likely not jump into the ring with anything except whatever they can make their Macs do in combination with an Airport Extreme. Neither Linux nor Apple may not end up having very full featured solutions but remember they only have to make them good enough. Something that MS has done for years with most of their products.