MS-Next

“Quattro,” a k a Windows Home Server, has been a puzzle to me, in terms of its codename. It didn’t seem to fit with the other members of the Windows Server family: Longhorn Server, Cougar, Centro, etc.

The reason it doesn’t mesh is that Windows Home Server, in some ways, is a product that almost didn’t come to be. It took Home Server General Manager Charlie Kindel four (yep, quattro) tries to get the executive green light.

Kindel said he first began mulling the idea for a Home Server type product back in 1999, when he was a group manager on the consumer Windows home networking team. (The home networking code was codenamed “Neptune.”)

“I started developing big thoughts on home server even back then,” Kindel said. “The (powers that be) were sort of interested, but they had other priorities.”

Next, while a member of the Microsoft hardware group, Kindel again pitched an idea for a home server that would be the hub of a home-automation system. It would be an always-on device that would provide centralized management of computing and other kinds of devices. No go.

Next, the “PVR (personal video recorder) became interesting around this time,” Kindel recalled, helping give birth to the Media Center Extender concept. As a member of the Windows Media Center team, Kindel again contemplated what a Home Server might look like and how it would differ from Media Center.

“That was my third try,” he said.

Kindel subsequently become Windows Server Chief Bob Muglia’s technical assistant. And Muglia “gave me the opportunity to think about this again,” Kindel said. In the first quarter of 2004, “Quattro,” Kindel’s fourth pass at a Home Server product, got the executive OK.

Full story & source: All about Microsoft

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 4:03 am and is filed under Hardware, Server, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.