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One Platform to Rule Them All! The Age of the Home Server Begins
The Diffusion Group, April 2008, Pages: 61
This report highlights current trends in digital storage and networking in the consumer home that are giving rise to demand for a single store-and-serve
platform on which consumers can archive their digital assets and from which digital content can be served to a variety of network-connected devices.
Key insights contained in this report include the following:
- The long-standing presumption in favor of the PC as the in-home digital media platform has shifted to devices with more CE-like characteristics that deliver simple, reliable, and targeted functionality. Consequently, PC-centric digital media solutions will be slowly relegated to more techsavvy households. Among mainstream consumers, the PC will occupy a support role when it comes to in-home digital media storage, management, and rendering. Simply stated, in the vast majority of households, the PC will not be the Home Server.
- Generally, consumers are more aware of the need to unify their digital media libraries so that they do not have to “sneaker net” CDs or DVDs from one room to another. Increasingly, they seek an experience defined by on-demand and consistent media gratification regardless of their location in the home (or outside of the home, for that matter – as TDG has long said, “The Digital Home Has No Walls”).
- Convincing indicators portend a slow but consistent shift away from isolated self-contained platforms to networked devices that interact in a client-server model. The client side of the equation represents the multiple devices consumers use to enjoy digital media (e.g., a TV, stereo, DVD player, or digital picture frame). The server in this architecture is represented by the platform on which the majority of a consumer’s personal digital media actually resides (i.e., on which it is stored and from which it can be served).
- Key to enabling this experience is the rapid diffusion of broadband Internet service and home networks. With these pieces in place, the road to a fully-networked, Internet-enabled digital entertainment experience is finally being paved, as is the path to a single networked solution tasked specifically with safely storing and serving digital content.
Several trends are coalescing to create this demand:
- The Accumulation of Consumer-Created Content: Given the rapid proliferation of content creation devices such as multimedia mobile phones and digital video cameras, not to mention improved image quality from HD video to 10MP consumer photos, consumers will soon require several times the digital storage used today. As well, commercial content from downloaded music and videos to recorded TV all add to inhome storage needs. Escalating storage requirements will drive consumers to look for cost-effective network-capable solutions that go beyond basic PC- or network-attached storage.
- The Proliferation of Digital Media Devices: Today’s household owns a wide variety of digital media devices, be it desktop and laptop PCs, game consoles, mobile phones, or portable digital media players – each of which requires synchronization, backup, and interoperability with other devices.
- Declining Cost of Digital Storage: Trends in storage pricing suggest that manufacturing and distributing inexpensive Home Server products is well within the reach of most PC and CE Original Equipment Managers (OEMs).
- Content Control: Despite the fact that media is (slowly) moving from a physical format to a digital format, consumers still want to “own” their digital media. This behavior is well-rooted and unlikely to change in the next five years, meaning that consumers will still prefer to store their digital media in their home as opposed to “in the cloud.” Collectively, these trends point to increasing demand for a single, stable in-home store-and-serve solution – in other words, a Home Server. The challenge (and opportunity) is to design a platform that is optimized for the needs of the average consumer (e.g., is extremely easy to set up and use and relatively inexpensive).
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