HP has today launched a new family of products aimed at the small and medium business (SMB) market.
Coming with the tagline "Just Right IT," the range aims itself at companies with less than 10 employees, which may be taking their first steps into hardware purchasing.
The flagship product is the HP Proliant MicroServer, designed as a central data storage server but claiming to come with a PC price tag.
"Small businesses have traditionally relied on interconnected PCs to share files and resources, which doesn't help them keep pace with a competitive environment," said Jim Ganthier, vice president for marketing of industry standard servers at HP.
"Leveraging over 20 years in server leadership and innovation, HP is introducing a no-compromise, compact server designed to fit into office environments with a versatile appearance and quiet operations."
The MicroServer comes with an AMD Athlon II processor with room for four 3.5 inch SATA drives. It has a maximum memory capacity of 8GB and two DIMM slots for PC3 DDR3 memory. There is also a one-year warranty to boot.
If the business buying this sort of machine wants to take the technology a step further, HP has also released Virtual SAN appliance software and what it calls "Virtualisation Bundles" with Microsoft's Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 incorporated.
There are also tailored support services being launched today in a bid to help new customers on board with the technology.
"While small to mid-size businesses remain cautious about the economy, they continue to look for ways to simplify operations and prepare for growth," said Anil Miglani, senior vice president at AMI Partners.
"HP, with the help of its channel partners, offers an expanded technology portfolio with realistic financing options that enable SMBs to manage data expansion, improve employee productivity and retain, as well as attract, clients."
The MicroServer is available from today starting at 265 (218), with service prices varying, depending on needs.
