Microsoft announced on July 16 that it's got completed development of its Windows Residence Server (WHS) item and has launched the code to production.Through the WHS staff weblog:“Today we are announcing that Windows Household Server has been released to production (RTM). We have finalized the software and now handing it off to our OEM partners. The evaluation version (with 120 day evaluation period) and the system builder version are also heading into the distribution channels and will be available in the next couple of months. French,
Microsoft Office 2010 Professional, German and Spanish versions will be finalized shortly,
Office 2010 Key, and OEM products will hit retail shelves this fall. “Also on July sixteen,
Office 2010 Download, Microsoft made public the names of two more OEMs who will make available WHS variants “in time for the holidays this year.” The two: Fujitsu Siemens, with a product called the “Scaleo Property Server,
Microsoft Office Professional 2007,” and Iomega, with an expandable consumer networking product that will include up to four hot-swappable drives.Windows Property Server is designed to act as a central hub for storage of music, photos, and other files. It will include automatic backup and restore, as well as remote file-access capabilities. The item will be sold exclusively through OEMs and system builders.Microsoft delivered the near-final Release Candidate of WHS to testers on June 12.Microsoft has said to expect the first WHS systems to be available this fall from Hewlett-Packard (Microsoft;s original WHS OEM partner,
Windows 7 Ultimate Key, first unveiled in January). Other OEM hardware and software partners who;ve committed to develop WHS systems include Gateway and consumer storage vendor LaCie and Medion International.