HP today introduced a series of new products aimed at the SMB market, not as whittled-down enterprise products with a few key features hacked off but with the features needed to grow while being cost- and energy-conscious.
The new offerings are an expansion of the HP Total Care portfolio, which helps small and midsized businesses (SMBs) manage, protect and grow their businesses. These products are an array of servers, storage, networking and security for SMBs meant to offer the option of growth into an enterprise-scale operation.
On the storage side, HP (NYSE: HPQ) introduced the StorageWorks X3000HA network storage system, which is based on HP’s StorageWorks X1000 low-end system but is beefed up with features like unified storage that provides block and file storage, built-in data deduplication to reduce replication, and drive failure protection.
“It’s got a simple interface. You can manage it by the Web or by an iPhone if you wish,” Lee Johns, director of unified storage at HP, told InternetNews.com. “We’ve taken technology we’re already delivering to consumers and enhanced its performance. The ability to have a unified storage system like this, configured with all the services you need with no additional software is something that’s new for SMBs.”
The second new offering is the X500 Datavault for very small businesses that might not even have centralized servers yet. This is a simple backup device for companies with very little IT sophistication that just want to protect data on its PCs. It starts at $700 for a 1TB device and can be expanded with more SATA drives.
On the networking side, HP is offering the ProCurve 1810G Switch, an eight- or 24-port 1Gbit switch that uses Power-over-Ethernet to power the device, fanless design for quiet operation and remote configuration.
Additionally, the switches can reduce power consumption by shifting into low-power mode and reducing the LED lights, and it has built-in network security protection against denial-of-service attacks. Adding security to its switches has been a strategic shift for HP recently.
The 24-port HP ProCurve 1810G-24 Switch starts at $519 while the eight-port ProCurve 1810G-8 Switch starts at $209.
HP also showed off its new notebook, the HP ProBook 5310m that it claims is the thinnest full-performance notebook, just 0.9 inches thick and weighing just 3.7 pounds.
The notebook has a 13.3-inch screen and offers up to seven hours of battery life. Users can choose between low-voltage Core 2 Duo or Celeron processors, 2GB or 4GB of memory, and Windows XP or Windows 7 when the latter is released in October. Suggested price starts at $699.