14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft released Windows Home Server on Monday, but only to hardware manufacturers, so individual customers will have to wait some more time until they get to play with it. Windows Home Server is basically an operating system designed for running a home network that stores, organizes and shares music, pictures, documents and movies.
OEM systems that will come with pre-installed Windows Home Server will shortly be available from Fujitsu Siemens Computers in Europe, and Iomega, a U.S. provider of storage and network security products. Fujitsu is developing a product called Scaleo Home Server, and Iomega is developing a user-expandable product for consumers with up to four hot-swappable drives. The other OEMs are still working on their respective computer systems that will run Windows Home Server. Gateway, HP, LaCie and Medion are expected to launch their own servers systems shortly in order to get a fair market share.
The general manager of Windows Home Server, Charlie Kindel, said on his blog that both the evaluating version (that is valid for 120 days) and the retail version (based in fact on the already available system builder version) are going to the distribution channels. Those versions should be made available to the general public by Microsoft and its resellers in a couple of months.
Windows Home Server will also go international as French, German and Spanish versions will finalize shortly, so Microsoft expects systems running the localized versions to hit the market sometime during this fall. Kindel said Home Server version 1.0 was completed "on time and on budget" and was cited by InfomationWeek. From the architectural point of view, Microsoft's Home Server is a pared down version of the much more powerful Server 2003, and it is not aimed for corporate use. The Home Server supports up to 10 PCs running either Windows XP or Vista.