There's still some doubt aboutthe release date, but there are two certainties about Windows Home Server: it's finished,and it's very good.

But it could still bomb anyway. And the reason is as old as Microsoft itself. (1) Microsoft is relying on other companies to make the hardware. (2) Those same companies just aren't very good at making consumer-friendly devices.

Just look down the list of confirmed partners: HP, Fujitsu,Gateway... all traditional PC companies with traditional PC habits. It's a recipefor exactly the same problem Microsoft had with portable media and PlaysForSure. The hardwarepartners just couldn't get it right; couldn't get players sexy enough. The end result was that Redmond gave upand tried itself, hence Zune.

Who can Microsoft rely on?

Creative, iRiver and their ilk were companies who knew their portable audio business - the PCcrowd have just never grasped the whole "home entertainment thing". The classicexample is Windows Media Center. Not quite as impressive as Home Server perhaps, but itwas a thoroughly useful bit of software that the vast majority of OEMs justdidn't know what to do with.

True, Windows Home Server isn't a front-row, next-to-the tellydevice. But thisneeds to be a model of iPod-like simplicity and elegance to get the marketshare it deserves, and I'm not convinced that a tower case with blue lights on is good enough.

TranquilPC's take looks much better but then smaller manufacturers were always better at Media Center, too: theyjust never got the shelf space to go mass market.

Will Windows Home Server bomb?

I'd like to be wrong about this. Home Server is a reallyuseful, really desirable product. And it's been developed in a way that puts alot of other companies to shame: quickly, efficiently, and with the utmostconsideration for the people testing it and the developers writing software forit.

But history suggests it's going to suffer from noisy fans, duff drivers,and innumerable office-friendly, home-unfriendly quirks of the sort that Applegets to beat out at the factory, and that's a real shame. What are the chancesof Zune Server come 2010?