On Monday, The New York Times published an article from Reuters/Billboard discussing the future of home based servers. The old news is that CD’s are disappearing from the home. The current news is that “Microsoft, and its Windows Home Server software that it launched in January, is expected to rule the home server market for the next five years, during which PC-based servers will be the dominant solution.”
It was the prediction of future news that caught my eye. “But Theocheung says the real spike in consumer adoption won’t come until after consumer electronics companies begin building server-like functions into their entertainment system products, which will overtake the PC as the primary source of such store-and-synch capability. In particular, he expects cable operators to be leaders in this transition, doing for servers what they did for DVRs by including the functionality in set-top boxes.”
This is not surprising in that if marketed and implemented correctly, Microsoft’s Media Center and Windows Home Server could begin to take revenue from the cable companies if the PC became the consumer’s choice for a DVR. This would not make the cable companies very happy.
The one thing that the article did not mention is what happens to all that digital media if you move, change providers, etc. Personally, I would prefer a little more control over my “server” and what I can put on it. And how to preserve it.
Only time will tell.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:55 pm
In 5-7 years time, I imagine online services such as Live Mesh will be more desireable than some cable company provided server.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
That is quite possible. These days newer technology has a habit of marching right existing solutions, rendering them obsolete.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I think we’ll continue to see set-top boxes being built with extender functionality (like DirecTV’s HR20/21), but not add more storage capacity than is currently used for the DVR. The TV providers want you to use that hard drive in the DVR for as much of their product as possible. The crux of the issue going forward will not be where the files are stored, but instead who’s first to make the interface with all of your files the most accessible and user friendly.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Which is what WMC does right now, except… for those encrypted channels. Lots of DRM questions/problems abound there.
And HD. If MS decides to not release the TV Pack to all, there will be a few “mildly” upset users.