Nothing is as handsome as a secret - French proverb
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Microsoft offers NAS vendors a crippled version of Windows Home Server
OPERATING SYSTEM VENDOR Microsoft has taken the wraps off its Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, offering small businesses network attached storage (NAS) server software.
Admitting it repackaged the basics of Windows Home Server, the Vole said that its Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials release is a "new edition targeted at small businesses". By small businesses it means less than 25 clients can connect to a machine running the operating system with an unnecessarily long-winded name.
It's actually very hard to see how this release is nothing more than a severely crippled version of the firm's Small Business Server. The feature list, though having all the main features ticked off, such as storing, backing up and the recovery of files, management console and network health monitoring, still lacks of any real reason why OEMs would end up choosing Microsoft's offering instead of Linux.
Presumably realising the signage for its product would be longer than the shelves it would be stocked on, Microsoft decided to flog Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials directly to OEMs rather than consumers. That means that the Vole expects the OEMs to come up with nifty hardware designs using its operating system and collect licence fees. The only problem is that, like Windows Phone 7, it has arrived at the party long after everyone else has guzzled the booze.
Tackling the obvious, Linux when combined with freely available, open source file sharing and networking monitoring tools, has been offering similar functionality for years. Then there's the fact that NAS vendors such as Netgear and Qnap have already built software on top of the Linux operating system. Running Linux on NAS boxes wasn't just a boon for techies either, with all customers enjoying the benefits.
The stereotypical image of systems running Linux having steep learning curves was banished with easy to use interfaces developed by the OEMs. This has resulted in users getting the best of both worlds, with Linux reliability and security coupled to ease of use provided with either web-based configuration screens or client side applications. For the more technologically adventurous, access to the command line is also there, opening up greater possibilities for feature expansion, not to mention avoiding an artificial restriction on the number of clients the server can connect to.
While none of these points might bother the person who just wants a small box to serve up documents or movies, Microsoft cannot sit back and rely on existing Microsoft networks that deploy technologies such as Active Directory to help it flog licences. Samba, the popular free filesharing subsystem, has supported Microsoft's Active Directory for many years. This goes to show that the Microsoft brand doesn't deserve the same weight any longer as it once did.
Even if the notion of having to install disparate software packages puts companies or users off, distributions such as FreeNAS based on FreeBSD are available, offering vendors a viable and highly secure software distribution to build upon.
All in all, Microsoft's decision to aim its Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials release at devices pitched at small businesses is likely to be a mistake. OEMs are unlikely to reinvest time and money in replacing already competent software that they created or customised. And even if OEMs do decide to ditch their current software, alternatives exist at compelling price points without the restrictions imposed by dealing with Microsoft.
The Vole might have finally decided to enter the small business NAS market sometime in the first half of 2011, but it will find a market that has already matured. It likely will have to drop some of the restrictions, and perhaps its prices, if it intends to enjoy some success. µ
Tags: Microsoft
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These articles like to take cheap shots at Microsoft.
The truth is that a Microsoft NAS might actually work...
Microsoft acknowledges their filesystems require defragmenting. Linux fanbois believe their miracle filesystems don't.
All my PCs are VMs. Only 1 rarely crashes. My router and NAS run Linux. They crash all the time.
Yes I can go find new distros for them and it's open source so I can fix the bugs myself, but why would I want to spend the rest of my life messing around with something that should just work.
"Overall penetration of Linux is close to 2% already, per this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems"
This is superb. Just superb. I plucked the 1% out of my arse as an implausibly low figure whose meaning is equivalent to "sod all", same as one might use 99% to mean "quite a lot", or 1000% to mean "I'm the judge on a reality TV show". Not that I watch reality TV shows.
But put me in a wig and call me Sally, that 1% was an horrific distortion the truth. Linux has more than 1% and I'm clearly just another stupid M$ Windoze user. Linux has...
2%
They do say that laughter is the best medicine, so I guess I'll not be needing to take my Prozac today. Ho ho.
That'll get all the windows fanbois in a right tizzy.
With the prices of the Linux NASes following to 3 figures, some even 2 figures, and widening their feature sets to include media streaming and such like, it’s hard to see how Microsoft can keep up: it would demand more than the list price in its licence fee alone.
So it’s no surprise that Linux has pretty much sewn up this entire market.
@biger_luddite: You just don't know unless you've gone there. Try your Linux NAS with Windows, Linux or OSX. It's slow on ALL OF THEM. Then try a Windows based NAS on all 3. It will be 10 times faster. So your made up lie of "Windows has deliberate traps" doesn't fly. You'll have to find another lie I guess. But then again, you just won't ever know enough to figure it out, will you?
Was worried that I was losing my sarc, that my taunts and jeers at M$ weren't drawing out any fanboys of late. But I found a couple live ones. Thanks, organ.
@Narg: Baloney. The only way that *might* be true is if Windows has deliberate traps that detect a Linux server and balk at it, and I don't put it past them. For instance, XP won't network with an OS/2 server until a specific registry key is set (default OFF, of course).
It is always better to pay for a crippled Micr0$uck$ LoseDoze operating system (O/S) than to use any alternative. With LoseDoze you can install the internet on to your computer and point and click and browse the web and cut and paste do all of the things that are so difficult if not impossible to do with any other O/S.
Run a NAS based on Linux sometime. Then setup a NAS based on Windows. You'll never ever go back to Linux again. The Windows NAS will run about 10 times faster on data movement and overall speed of access to the files and directories. Linux is NOT that great folks.
@Heironymous: Overall penetration of Linux is close to 2% already, per this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
Linux servers run from 16.2% to 63.7% of all Internet servers, depending on who you believe (and keeping in mind that IDC is paid to generate the statistics they report - paid by Microsoft, in fact).
So perhaps you'd care to re-evaluate your mindless hate of a superior, free, open-source operating system ecosystem (assuming you're capable of rational thought, which I am prepared to assume).
... until you install FreeNAS, Openfiler or the likes and you realize how limited the support can be.
Don't get me wrong, these open source solutions are great (FreeNAS user here), but they require a lot of knowledge, something not every small business owners has or can afford!
The only reason to use this over linux is if you need some of the permissions control features that samba doesn't support correctly yet. Inheritance of both allow/deny permissions for groups and individual users has always been a weak point of any of the unix-like permission schemes.
Authenticating with a Linux NAS from windows has always beena pain in the ass. Can't use spaces in usernames,ect... I for one would embrace a windows based NAS over Linux any day.
The fact you pepper all your hot air with M$ means the prejudice with which it is riddled is visible from neighbouring planets. That's very useful for those of us who wish to skip the tiresome "MY great computer does it better than YOUR crap one" tirades, so do keep that up.
Incidentally, if *nix and its ilk were so bloody brilliant, and given the information available on them is both widespread and widely understood, why does nobody give a shit? If they were as totally superior as you seem to be claiming, and any Microsoft alternative so horribly unusable, then their market share would have started tipping at least a decade ago, shouldn't it? But it hasn't. Not a bit.
Come back and haunt us when Linux breaks the 1% barrier, okay?
Beginning with Gates: "640K ought to be enough for anyone".
Still, ya gotta admire their unmatched infernal chutzpah, to offer for sale a product that isn't as good as free Linux into an already established arena. Guess they expect to get paid just for showing up.