HP Ramps Up SMB Portfolio With New Offerings

HP has expanded its Total Care portfolio to help small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) prepare for the economic recovery.

In what amounted to a slew of product announcements for the SMB market, the company unveiled the HP Pro 3010/3015 Series of business desktops, as well as a low power consuming flat panel (the HP Compaq LE1711 LCD). On the server side, HP is now offering a thin client and Microsoft server bundle, as well as HP ProLiant ML110 and DL120 Go Servers.

According to Gerhard Keller, HP head of StorageWorks Product Marketing (EMEA), the tower-based ML110 is being offered as a first server for small businesses that includes integrated management for ease of use. The DL120, meanwhile, has similar capabilities in a rack-mount form factor. Pricing for the ML110 is approximately $759 (£455) whereas the DL120 comes in at around $999 (£600).

“All of the announcements are focusing on the SMB market,” Keller told eWEEK Europe. “We sought to understand what customers are looking for and how we can help them with new challenges.”

On the networking side, HP unveiled the ProCurve 2520 Switch Series, which has been designed so that SMBs can easily deploy voice (IP), video and wireless solutions. It costs in the region of 439 euros (£395) to 1,400 euros (£1,260).

“The 2520 is ideal for customers looking for VoIP or wireless solutions,” said Odile Satrin-Peyre, Product Manager at HP ProCurve Networking (EMEA). “It works with any VoIP system, such as Avaya.”

“SMBs are looking for simple, reliable, cost effective devices, and the 2520 offers flexibility and ease of deployment, plus it is a very quiet unit that can be deployed in open office environments,” she told eWEEK Europe.

HP also had a number of announcements to make on the storage side after it unveiled the HP StorageWorks DAT 320 tape drive which, according to Keller, now doubles the capacity of the previous offering and consumes half the power.

Other announcements here include the StorageWorks D2D Backup System and HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solution, which come with new snapshot capabilities. There is also HP’s SimpleSave hard disk drives which automatically locate and then back-up data on the PC, with no software needed to install or configure on the system. The hard disks are available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB versions.

HP is also releasing a set of ‘Virtualisation Smart Bundles’ for HP ProLiant servers, StorageWorks storage products, and ProCurve networking devices that come with Microsoft’s Hyper-V and Windows Server 2008 R2. Pricing for these start at less than $3,500 (£2,100).

HP finished off the product announcements with some new LaserJet printers, also announcing a number of financing solutions – available via HP Financial Services – designed to help SMBs acquire HP products.