The WSSG Community Lead Blog : Windows Home Server

Thoughts on Sean's post on Community Strategy; Are you Company-Centric or Customer-Centric?

Kevin Beares — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:31:00 GMT

I posted the following comment on Sean's blog post about whether you are Company Centric or Customer Centric. http://communitygrouptherapy.com/2008/05/17/community-strategy-are-you-company-centric-or-customer-centric/ . Along with my thoughts below, I...(read more)

The BIG Question at SMB Nation 2007. "Microsoft, can I run Windows Home Server on my SBS Network?"

Kevin Beares — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:36:00 GMT

Last week was an amazing week... We started off on September 27th and 28th with over 20 MS MVPs (mostly SBS MVPs aka the SBS Family) in town before SMB Nation 2007 for a set of Round Table / Deep Dive / NDA conversations with the Centro, Windows Home...(read more)

Enabling a broad feedback channel to the Windows Home Server team and SBS team via MS Connect for RTM releases

Kevin Beares — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:22:00 GMT

So, how do you provide feedback to Microsoft today? What I am talking about when I say feedback is a bug or a suggestion like you would on a beta. I know that participating in a Beta like the Windows Home Server Beta is one way to get in your suggestions...(read more)

Wanted to make it official that the Windows Home Server Web Forum is live

Kevin Beares — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 23:14:00 GMT

Hey all, If you are interested in what people are talking about in regards to Windows Home Server Beta 2, head on over to http://forums.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver . As promised, we are having a public discussion about Beta 2. All of the people participating...(read more)

Will the Windows Home Server Beta have an open dialogue with the community?

Kevin Beares — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 07:06:00 GMT

I just posted a comment here Windows Home Server updates. about whether or not we will remove the confientiality requirement on Windows Home Server Beta when the Web Forums go live. The short answer is yes. You can read more when my comment gets published....(read more)

New info. The Windows Home Server blog is up and running!!

Kevin Beares — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 02:32:00 GMT

The Windows Home Server blog is up and running at http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver . This blog is managed by the Windows Home Server team. Look for some really great info from the team on what is going on with Windows Home Server....(read more)

Where are we with the Windows Home Server Beta

Kevin Beares — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:31:00 GMT

Just an update on the Windows Home Server Beta (Beta 2).

I will posting a final announcement of the public beta soon. Now, this is not your normal public beta, You will kind of have to know someone to get in initially. Primarily invitations will be spread virally. So, existing MS employees who are participating in the beta, worldwide, I might add in a very proportional way, will get to invite someone that they know to the beta. We have well over 1,000 MSFT employees on this beta right now. So, the viral thing has a good head start. Once that happens, depending on how quickly those invitations get used up, we will do another block of invitations to the existing beta participants again.

We will also have a web forum up on http://forums.microsoft.com/technet. The forum will be called Windows Home Server. Surprised. This forum will be completely public so even if you are not on the beta, you can read what is going on up there for yourself and also ask questions. We will do our best to answer them. We may also be dropping out invitation codes randomly into the forums so that anyone who is paying attention can grab it and get in. We will probably also come up with some other ways to get the invitations out in the wild.

I hope that this helps make it clearer on how we plan to run this beta. Who knows, it could change, it has happened before.

Kevin

The secret is out. Windows Home Server is announced!

Kevin Beares — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:23:00 GMT

I cannot tell you how exciting it is to now be able to talk about Windows Home Server. I am part of a team called the Windows Server Solutions Group (WSSG). This group is responsible for the development of SBS, Centro and Windows Home Server. I have been running and testing numerous builds of this product for over a year and have been amazed at what it can do. I am so excited to be at this stage in the development cycle. I know we are not a released product yet, but you have to check this thing out.

As I am running the betas for SBS and for Centro, I will also be running the beta for Windows Home Server. Stay tuned for further details on the Windows Home Server Beta. I cannot make promises that this beta will be like others, but hopefully we can make it fun for everyone and get a lot of valuable feedback from the community. I very much look forward to working with the community to get input to the product team. This team is amazing to work with and have been phenomenal in how involved they have been with working with the Microsoft Internal Beta testers who have been keeping Windows Home Server secret. I feel like we have a vibrant community built around this product already. We have had a large amount of people signed up internally at Microsoft testing Windows Home Server since December 05. The feedback and discussions have been passionate and insightful.

I look forward to talking to you all more about this later.

Check out Charlie Kindel's blog for even more information and this cool video with CJ at on10.net. Windows Home Server will live in your closet, simplify your life

Kevin Beares
WSSG Community Lead