Saturday, February 17, 2007
Why Doesn't Windows Home Server Do "XYZ"?
Posted by Jason Dunn in "ARTICLE" @ 02:00 PM
"When someone asks "Why doesn't Windows Home Server do Foo?" a response of "because" goes just about as well as it does when my son asks "Why can't I just eat chocolate for dinner?" This post is an attempt to generically answer the "why not" questions by explaining the process my team used to plan Windows Home Server...As is the case with most new product ideas we had a "jewel of an idea" that would serve as a cornerstone for everything we did. The nucleus of our vision if you will: "A home server is an always available smart node on the home network dedicated to providing services to other nodes on the home network and the Internet." This is an insanely broad definition. Clearly you can't build a product around something so broad, but you can develop a long term vision."
Some really interesting commentary from the Windows Home Server (WHS) team answering the critics who want the product to do much more than it already does today. I've worked with software developers before (and work with Web developers today) and the issue of trying to make version 1.0 of something do "everything" is a real problem. End users don't always understand how complicated even small changes can be, so this is a good read if you're wondering about what WHS is, and more importantly, what it's not.
Some really interesting commentary from the Windows Home Server (WHS) team answering the critics who want the product to do much more than it already does today. I've worked with software developers before (and work with Web developers today) and the issue of trying to make version 1.0 of something do "everything" is a real problem. End users don't always understand how complicated even small changes can be, so this is a good read if you're wondering about what WHS is, and more importantly, what it's not.
