Software News

Microsoft cuts Home Server price by 30pc

Colin Barker ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 03 Nov 2008 17:15 GMT

Microsoft has cut the price of its Windows Home Server by 30 percent as it tries to attract more partners to support the product and help it grow.

The news was released in a short announcement on the Windows Home Server blog on Friday, with the price cut applicable from Sunday. However, as Windows Home Server is sold through Microsoft's channel partners (such as Fujitsu Siemens, HP, Mesh Computers and others) it may take time for this to trickle through.

According to the Microsoft announcement: "After a successful year in the market, Microsoft is reducing the price of the System Builder version of Windows Home Server to provide additional value to the system-builder community and further promote the home-server category."

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"Momentum for Windows Home Server remains strong," the company said.

The announcement of the price reduction comes just before the expected launch by 12 November of the next version of Microsoft's Windows Small Business Server 2008. Although not in the same market, the two products are closely related products with very similar audiences.

Success for Home Server rests partly on the ability to attract companies and organisations that want to build applications to work closely with Home Server. As the Microsoft Home Server team said in its statement on the price cut: "The list of hardware partners continues to grow and third-party software developers have released or have announced more than 60 add-in programs extending Windows Home Server's capabilities."

ZDNet UK approached Microsoft for UK pricing, but they could not supply it in time for this article. Current UK pricing is £129 on Amazon.