Microsoft has been working to further its attraction to the average user, and since Windows XP, the company has made some fairly significant strides in this area. Overall, Xbox 360 and Media Center have made up for any shortcomings felt in the Vista universe at this point, I think.

Then today, I happened upon something that really shocked me - Popfly. Even though this is certainly not OS related, its creation depicts that Microsoft is trying to prove that it can remain competitive when the chips are down, again. To be sure, Popfly will appeal to the non-developers amongst us, but what is Microsoft doing on the home server front these days? You know - something besides the Media Center?

Windows Home Server. Contrary to popular misconception, it has been recently made clear that WHS (Windows Home Server) will indeed, be offered as an OEM product, thereby not forcing you into ISV headache. Designed to bring all of your home media into a single source, the WHS is expected to be the simplest and most effective way to build an effective Windows file/media/print server for the home.

Complete with recovery options for lost files, a fairly robust firewall and Single Instance Store (SIS) technology to help you decrease the need for dated backups, the WHS appears to be a solid server package for the ever expanding home network.

Is Microsoft ready for this? To some degree, with what I have been witnessing with Vista, Windows Media Center, the Xbox 360 and now WHS, I cannot help but feel like Microsoft is aiming to take over the home space.

Considering the moves to make everything accessible across the board, I’m still not convinced that Microsoft’s latest wares have out long enough yet to be trusted with this level of unfetter access from one box to another. Even after factoring in the improved efforts seen with Vista, I suspect there are still some lingering concerns that will need to be healed overtime before people are rushing out to bridge their home systems together just yet.

To be fair and realistic, however, if WHS is based on the latest Windows Server technology, there may be enough security in place to appease even the most paranoid amongst us.

Why do home users need this? As I’m sure this will come up, the question as to why the home user actually needs access to a WHS is likely to come up. And thus far, it appears that the defining response is primarily that it will be seen as an extension to home media appliances.

Besides this, any time you have a central server hosting your most beloved documents, pictures, and other media, there remains the safety net of knowing that if one workstation goes belly up, those files are safely stored elsewhere.

At the end of the day, remote storage offerings are not an option, as cable Internet providers have made it very clear. I suspect that Microsoft plans on banking on this fact, even if the underlying idea behind more localized storage does feel rather “last century.”

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[tags]Microsoft, Windows Home Server, WHS[/tags]