Beware the Retail Freebie

Stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City have been steadily bolstering their small-business technology services and wooing clients with a variety of offerings, from interactive online IT audits to free shipping for business technology purchases. Best Buy has even transcended its Geek Squad services roots with in-store, online and on-site technology services dubbed BBFB (Best Buy For Business) run by Microsoft veteran David Hemler.

The SMB intentions of the retailers became even more obvious last month when office supply giant Staples announced the purchase of Concord, Mass.-based Thrive Networks, a 65-person solution provider that works exclusively with small businesses.

"Staples understands that technology is playing a more significant role in how small and medium size businesses operate," said Thrive president Jim Lippie in a statement announcing the sale of his company.

The Staples contract services division was searching specifically for an IT outsourcer focused on clients with 20 or more employees to augment its Staples Business Advantage program, he said.

Now, CompUSA is looking to get an inside track on SMB upgrades to the new Vista operating system by leveraging its cozy relationship with Microsoft to offer free "Vista evaluations" for small-business customers. The Dallas-based technology retail chain is looking to get between VARs and their SMB customers with the offer, which is available at all 229 CompUSA store in the United States and Puerto Rico.

According to a statement by the company, CompUSA's Vista check takes approximately five minutes and will be conducted by a qualified CompUSA TechPro technician. Customers can visit the CompUSA TechPro Service Center during store hours and no appointments are required to receive the check up.

"I seriously doubt the value of anything a customer can get at a retail service counter in five minutes," says Robert Sylvia, president of Bridge Computers in East Providence, R.I. "But it's hard to argue with anything that screams 'free.' I'm sure they'll get their share of takers."

What CompUSA SMB customers will get from a TechPro technician is a system scan using a rudimentary system analyzer developed and licensed by Microsoft and already available for free online. Results of scans performed by VARBusiness with the tools vary slightly from PC to PC, but are largely limited to reporting well-known systems requirements for processor speed and hard drive and RAM capacity.

The scan also reports non-specific warnings about "possible conflicts" with resident software and hardware such as video cards. Much of the scan's report is dedicated to marketing material for features and benefits of Vista upgrades.

"For many, changing operating systems is like voyaging into the unknown and customers can depend on and trust CompUSA's tremendous technical expertise to provide a smooth and successful upgrade," said Brian Woods, executive vice president of merchandising for CompUSA, in a statement unveiling the store's Vista program.

Most VARs queried said they weren't very concerned about the CompUSA Vista offer, adding they take regular steps to emphasize to customers the value of sticking with a true solution provider.

"This might be attractive to some really, really small shops. But most of my customers are too busy to get involved in bringing their machines to a store for evaluation," says Mark Kraner, CEO of Primary Support, a solution provider and Microsoft Certified Partner in New York. "If I had had clients who did things like that, they wouldn't be very good clients."

Kraner says he stresses to his customers that they need to be very careful about who they let evaluate products and touch their IT equipment.

"We really prefer that they don't work on their own," he says. "Just carrying PCs around is a bad idea, things can break, parts can get unseated."