Nothing - Lost in Translation
This past week a few members of the Windows Home Server team were in Tokyo, Japan. Along with the local team from Microsoft Japan, we were very pleased to host the first Windows Home Server Users Night! The venue was a banquet room on the 47th floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel, in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo which afforded a beautiful view of the cityscape and a free "light show" courtesy of a passing thunderstorm.
About 30 enthusiastic people showed up to enjoy food, drinks, and all things Windows Home Server. Kenichi-san, a technical evangelist from Microsoft Japan, was the master of ceremony. After a brief presentation, the attendees got a chance to pepper the Microsoft team with questions. Topics ranged from positioning versus the competition, to very technical aspects of the product. It was an interesting exercise working through a Japanese translator!
For those of you following the Windows Home Server World Cup, the Users Night attendees assured the Microsoft team that Japan would rise quickly in the rankings once the Japanese version of Windows Home Server is available. We certainly hope they are right.
We also discovered that in conjunction with availability of Japanese online forums, a competition had taken place earlier in the year for Windows Home Server applications.
http://www.homeserver-forum.com/communityhs/contest/hs_contest_3rd.asp
Interested in an application for Windows Home Server that monitors your aquarium? (PH levels of the water, water temperature, room temperature, lighting/brightness, and the requisite aquarium web camera). It’s all written in Japanese but was quite a unique and original scenario. Congratulations Mr. Yoshihiro Okabe!
Steven
