HP MediaSmart Home Server may get some competition from Apple
HP this week updated its MediaSmart home server, which has many services Mac users would love to take advantage of. Centralized iTunes music database for the home, picture sharing, even file sharing over the Internet.
Context & Ripple Effects
This report lands in the middle of a running arc over who owns the living room's digital hub. Apple had already thrown down the gauntlet to Microsoft's media center ambitions back in 2005, and third-party efforts like the MediaCentral HTPC frontend showed strong demand for Mac-centric home media management. Now HP is courting exactly those users — building centralized iTunes libraries, photo sharing, and Internet file access into its updated MediaSmart server — while rumors suggest Apple itself may field a competing device.
First-order effects
- Mac households get a new option: an HP MediaSmart box that centralizes the family's iTunes music database, photo sharing, and remote file access without waiting on Apple.
- HP's update effectively pre-empts a rumored Apple home-server product by adopting services Apple users actually want, putting HP one step ahead in its own channel.
Second-order effects
- If Apple enters, it forces HP to compete on integration rather than features alone — an Apple-built server would tie directly into iTunes and the Mac OS experience HP can only approximate.
- Microsoft, whose media center strategy Apple has already targeted, faces pressure from both sides as third parties build cross-platform media hubs that dilute Windows' role as the household server.
Third-order effects
- The longer pattern points toward media shifting from scattered PCs to a single home hub — and eventually off-premises entirely, as later moves like Apple's iTunes cloud media services patent and the eventual restoration of Home Sharing under Eddy Cue suggest local servers were a transitional stage toward cloud-hosted libraries.
The trend: Home media infrastructure is migrating from DIY PC setups toward integrated vendor-controlled hubs — first hardware servers, then cloud services — with each player racing to own the whole stack.