While this paper has primarily focused on media servers from the point of view of traditional telecommunication applications, media servers will play an important role in the next-generation digital home as well. As broadband to the home becomes commonplace, we will see the emergence of new and exciting applications that will have a big impact on our personal lives. We are already seeing the emergence of TV over IP (IPTV) promising to change the way we access public content such as broadcast and on-demand programming. Providers will be able to personalize what their customers receive; not only providing them with content that interests them but also content when they want it.

Going beyond public content, media services will be used in new and innovative ways to enrich our personal lives. For example, media servers may be used to share private content such as personal photos and video with friends and families, and to do so securely. Residential media servers may be used for home security and health monitoring as well as entertainment.

Intel technology will continue to advance to meet the demands of these future applications. With leadership technologies such as multi-core, I/O acceleration, virtualization, power management and security, to name just a few, Intel promises to continue to provide platforms that exploit the next generations of platform technologies to their fullest.