SMC To Roll Out New SMB Managed Switch

The vendor is calling its SMC8024L2 an SMB managed switch. It is aimed at customers that need more capabilities than an unmanaged switch offers but don’t want to pay for enterprise-class features on a managed switch that they won’t use, said Tom Rizol, general manager of North America at SMC, Irvine, Calif.

“Not every SMB has a network-savvy person in the IT department, so we’ve developed this [switch] class so they don’t have to have a heavy IT person in there,” Rizol said.

The new Layer 2 switch’s capabilities include Web-based management, quality of service for VoIP deployments, port-based VLANs, spanning tree and security features such as 802.1x and IP filtering, but it leaves out higher-level functions such as protocol-based VLANs and multispanning tree features that an SMB customer might never use, said Tony Stramandinoli, vice president of marketing at SMC.

Gary Stern, president of SMC partner PC Universe, said the new product line should help the Boca Raton, Fla.-based solution provider grow its SMC sales. “It helps us get into the SMB market and allows [us to go after] people who want to grow into VoIP in the future,” he said.

Stern said SMC has been more proactive about working with channel partners lately, pointing to the company’s rollout of increased partner marketing and training efforts and its addition of channel reps and channel support as evidence.

The new switch is aimed at SMBs, small enterprises and workgroups with 20 to 100 users and features 24 Gigabit ports and two uplink ports.

The switch is scheduled for availability this month and is priced at $699.99.

A 48-port version with four uplink ports is scheduled for release at the end of June, Stramandinoli said.