Ok – this might be a tad geeky for many readers, but I am too excited about what I’m learning about Windows Home Server to stay quiet about it.
Damn the consequences!
Windows Home Server? What Is That?
Picture (seriously, there’s a picture of it!) being able to finally become a responsible PC owner. Backing up your PCs (all of them, without all the pain in the rear stuff that backing up embodies today) every night to a remote “server” in your home.
Picture a “headless” device that pools everyone’s files (your PC upstairs, downstairs, the laptop, all of it) in a central location away from the PC that is going to crash next.
Picture being able to plop in a restore disk and pulling your crashed PC back to life from the image that was backed up last night on your Windows Home Server.
That’s cool and all. Very cool in fact.
But the business opportunity for 3rd party developers is just now being realized.
Speaking of “picturing” everything, how about this:
You have a digital photo frame. “Picture” that frame pulling new images off of your [tag-tec]Windows Home Server[/tag-tec] and updating itself constantly, remotely, without you having to plug in a USB stick to do the same thing.
That can be done as soon as someone develops the software, because the OS that [tag-tec]WHS[/tag-tec] uses is open and ready for 3rd party apps.
The above example is for illustration purposes only.
What about us entrepreneurial types? Anything good about this for us?
I think so. If the projected 50 million household market is as excited about having WHS as I certainly am, that means there will be plenty of market for developing products for WHS.
Remember when we all anxiously awaited the critical mass of broadband users so we could market with audio and video?
Same thing is about to happen here with WHS.
When people grab WHS, they will be able to, say, watch a video they have stored on the server remotely – anywhere in the world.
So they can keep their laptops cleaner and still have access to your latest training video series on (insert your niche here).
I am too new to the idea of the Windows Home Server to have thought through everything this new product could do for us as online/offline businesses, but I will be watching and thinking as this unravels.
Here is a cool, albeit geeky, video from “Building 42” on the Microsoft campus.
Other interesting WHS tidbits and blog posts:
Windows Home Server Will Live In Your Closet, Simplify Your Life