HP Targets Very Small Businesses With MicroServer, New Wares

Hewlett-Packard Wednesday unveiled a $329 ProLiant server and other printer, storage and PC products aimed specifically at cutting the cost of micro-business and small-business computing.

The company also is making available best practices and related information as well as financing through HP Financial Services to its small-business customers and solution providers through its new "Just Right IT" portfolio.

The new products and services are aimed at the fast-growing base of very small businesses, said Jim Ganthier, vice president of marketing for industry-standard servers at HP.

"We're the first tier-one company to target the zero- to nine-user customer base," Ganthier said. "These are companies with no IT face but instead are focused completely on growth."

The primary route to market for HP's "Just Right IT" portfolio of products is HP's solution provider base. "Most doctors, lawyers and real estate firms depend on our local partners," he said. "So we're creating an entire partner ecosystem for this, including HP Financing, to help partners finance deals over $2,000."

Leading the new lineup is HP's ProLiant MicroServer, a small desktop unit featuring a dual-core AMD Athlon II microprocessor, up to 8 GB of PC3 DDR3 memory, a Gbit Ethernet port, room for two half-height, half-length PCIe slots, and up to four low-form-factor 3.5-inch SATA drives.

List price with one 2-TB hard drive but no operating system starts at $329. "We let the solution provider help the customer decide which OS to use," Ganthier said. "And we let partners bundle the software and set their price."

The new ProLiant MicroServers will be available through small-business solution providers and on HP's home office Web site. However, units sold through the Web site will not have the operating system, storage or services, encouraging customers to work with their local solution providers, he said.

Next: Software Bundles And More For Micro Businesses

HP is working with ISVs to bring software bundles to the ProLiant MicroServer, initially including Microsoft and, over time, VMware, Ganthier said. The company also expects to unveil other ISV partnerships related to accounting, customer tracking and other applications, he said.

"We really do want to tailor this offering for the market," he said.

Ganthier said the key point about the new server is that it is a true ProLiant product. "We didn't offer a stripped-down product," he said. "Some companies jack up desktops for small-business servers, and some strip down larger servers. We started at the beginning with this product."

Unlike many of its products, the ProLiant MicroServer will go through open distribution, Ganthier said.

To go with the ProLiant MicroServer, HP on Wednesday also unveiled Officejet printers, including the Officejet Pro 8500A color all-in-one printer and the Officejet 7500A, a wide-format all-in-one device with built-in Web connectivity.

Also new is the Compaq 500B and Compaq 505B series of minitower business desktop PCs with the Windows 7 operating system.

The 500B is based on the AMD Athlon II processor and can be configured with up to 4 GB of memory and a 160-GB to 500-GB hard drive with a list price starting at $424. The 505B is similar but includes either an Intel Celeron or Pentium dual-core processor, and lists starting at $449.

HP also is offering a new 10-Gbit Ethernet iSCSI version of its HP StorageWorks P2000 G3 MAS storage array along with a new version of HP Data Protector Express 5.0 data protection software with improved business-continuity capabilities and a new user interface, Ganthier said.

For small-business customers with virtualized servers, HP is offering the HP P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance software that will let them set up a shared storage infrastructure without the need for a physical SAN.