I would love an email option in WHS. So much so, that it would be one of the most important features why I would buy a WHS system. I totally agree with jpennin1 comments. I also agree with johncz points 1, 2, 3 & 4.

The most important features I would look for in a WHS in order of priority are:

1) Reliable storage (either RAID 5 or similar). If a hard drive fails, I don't want to loose any data what so ever.

2) PC backup.

3) Sharing video and photos (and other files) in the home and access from the Internet.

4) Email with access/sync from my Windows-based mobile phone.

E-mail is overboard as most people have and like web based e-mail services.

Having a shared calender and contacts for the household/family is essential and would be an incredible selling point.  Having an easy way for parents to keep track of their children's school schedules, or keeping track of doctors appointments or planned vacations would be an incredibly handy feature.

I assume with Vista's new calender application, this is something that's planned...... I hope so anyway.

I see some comments here about shared Calendar & Contacts.  Shouldn't that be part of Live services?  Its not very taxing on broadband requirements to do it that way.  Microsoft needs to be careful, even with WHS it does need to move more service to the web and minimize duplicating functionality.  WHS in my mind is about providing localized/shared/alwayson services.  Future features could include...

1. Home Media Download Server

2. Centralized Parental Controls/Monitoring

3. Home Automation Control

..I retract #2 above, Windows Live OneCare Family Safety Beta should solve this nicely for me.

In all honesty, the single biggest feature I need is remote backup.  My family is spread out since my sister and I have grown up.

I live in Maryland and have 3 computers and am tech support for the whole family.

My sister is going to college and has 1 computer (hopefully getting a tablet soon).

My parents share 1 laptop at home in New Jersey.

We all need a backup solution, music would be great, but more importantly, word documents, spreadsheets, taxes and pictures.

We all have broadband.

What I need is a way to have the server at one location (mine) and let them backup their stuff.  Otherwise their still going to be left not backing anything up.  Backup systems need to be automatic.  PCs are appliances for most people, and although they require maintenance like a car, it should be just as infrequently.  If you had to change the oil on your car once a week, even if it cost 50 cents, you would be quite fed up.  I don't want to spend 30 minutes a week backing up my pc, and most nobody backs up their computer because of it.

Please please please include remote backup for small files.

I agree with you on the remote idea Brothernod... in fact I posed a similar question to Charlie back on the C9 thread a while back... it was one of the Q's I couldn't get him to answer.

I'd expect that there will be an artificial limitation built in to prevent such a thing... if for no other reason than to save on bandwidth costs... just think, one of your remote machines has... 30 gigs of data which needs to be backedup... assuming the entire set only has to go across the wire once (as part of the first backup)... you are talking ~11 days to transfer it from a home connection with a capped upload rate of 32 k/s.

Who knows... maybe this will be one of those areas that a third party will come in and exploit (free or not) and provide a way for more client side processing to determine which files need to be sent.

I agree that Exchange probably doesn't belong in this product, but it would be nice to give families that buy this product access to an affordable hosted Exchange solution as part of the package.

For more detail see http://thunor.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!71C238B5E0E3724D!190.entry

I'm sure it is capable of differentiating file types and conveying the limitations of remote backup to users simply.  After all you would know that you aren't local and it's a special case.

I would see the limitation more in line with raising demand by forcing people to get their own rather than sharing. ie a family across 2 location with 2 computers each may be able to share 1 setup with remote backup as opposed to having to get 1 setup for each location.

Either way, it's what I need lol and pretty much the only way I'd be able to justify it's purchase.

I'm also really curious about the data redundancy scheme and would love to hear more about it.

To be completely honest, I have been insanely excited about what WHS could offer, but the lack of Exchange really has put a damper on that.

I realize that hosted email is easy, free, etc etc, but as someone mentioned earlier, I was really looking forward to an easy way of having Outlook Web Access. The email aspect of an Exchange feature on the WHS was only about 10% of what I was looking forward to. I would have loved to have access to my calendar, contacts, tasks, AND email all in the wonderfully powerful OWA (from anywhere). Oh well, I guess it was too good to be true.

I don't know if I have much of a use for a WHS at this point. I have a decent backup plan in place right now and it's fairly cheap to maintain. I guess we'll see if something really compelling comes out of all of this.

I am one of those that would love to have exchange, live communications, sharepoint, ect integrated into my home domain.  I have 4 kids at home who are attending a vertial accadmy for school.  Keeping them safe while attending the school is what keeps me up at night.

A more robust home server, with exchange, live communication, SharePoint, ect. would be a natural choice for me.  I currently have 11 servers in my home server farm, 14 personally owned workstatings and laptops, and an employer owned laptop in my home.  Six of the servers and 5 of the workstations/laptops are used by me for personal research. (I am a computer security proffessional.)

I have been involved in computer security for over 20 years.

I understand no email (though the LIVE team might have some interesting ideas)

However shared calendars for family will definately be coveted.  Its one of those features that people dont even know they want, but once they have it...they love it.

To keep WHS simple/inexpensive/purposeful..task it with data intensive/local functions.  Calendar is not data intensive.

I'm sure there will be plenty of add-on solutions to expand WHS and has the flexibility for you to really geek it up.  But please, don't do that to the average consumer.

A shared calendar is not geeking it up.  As Jeremy said, most people don't know they want it and once they have it they will find it invaluable.

As the console market has proven time and time again, people don't buy add-ons.  If it's not built in people won't bother, simply because it is not set up with a way to inform people of handy additions.

Plus patching and addons removes the simplicity they are pitching so heavily.

brothernod, why not just share calender through Live service?

I think that when many people think about putting a new feature into software they confuse rich capabilities with complexity.

I've seen comments that this product needs to stay simple and that's why Exchange shouldn't be in there.  But having Exchange technology under the hood doesn't mean that this feature should make the product more complex.  Instead I see this technology really making this product the center of your digital home like it should be.

I envision a simple interface on the server similar to the shared folders interface but instead it would be for shared family contacts, calendar, etc. and permissions for each just like the shared file folders.  I also picture that the server connector program that lives on the client computers would automatically configure Outlook for you.  Maybe there could even be a customized "Home" version of Outlook bundled injust as Outlook is bundled with Small Business Server.

Imagine if the family had smartphones and Mom had to let everyone know that the time for a family event planned for that evening had changed.  When she updates it in the family calendar it updates on Dad and kid's smartphones so they know about the change.  Then Mom needs Dad to pick up milk on his way home and she sets up a task request and it syncs to his phone as well.

This is how I want my home of the future to work! Make the vision a reality, Microsoft!