This IDC study examines the market conditions and the opportunity for the home media server market. The taxonomy is used by IDC analysts to generate market sizings, forecasts, and company models.

"As the digital home ecosystem matures, multiple players have aimed to capture a central role in the networked home, each introducing some variation of home media servers, which are devices that are capable of storing and streaming content in the home and allow for remote access to the digital content. Form factors and channels will play key roles in influencing the devices that will allow consumers to acquire, manage, and consume their digital content," said Jonathan Gaw, research manager for IDC's Consumer Markets: Home Networking program.