IBM and HP target small businesses

IBM is to target small businesses with per-user pricing on its iSeries solutions.

The company is offering "all-in-one" solutions for up to 40 users that include systems, storage and related software and services. Pricing is $7,995 (£4,041) complete with five user licences. Additional user licences cost $1,250 (£632) per five users.

While most small-business users who are new to IBM will be looking at the pSeries of Unix and Linux servers, the iSeries is IBM's workhorse system for small and medium-sized businesses. The iSeries includes features that the company hopes will appeal to SMEs, including a built-in workload manager that helps companies run and manage multiple applications independently on one system.

Meanwhile HP has also announced a new system aimed at the SME market. The AiO1200 is the fourth HP server and storage product released in 2007 designed specifically for small businesses.

The HP AiO1200 is aimed at larger customers than those whom IBM is targeting. It includes a storage array with a high-performance controller in a 12-drive array, which allows storage to be allocated at a granular level. The HP AiO1200 is available with up to 9TB (terabytes) of capacity and SATA (serial ATA) or SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) options. No pricing was released.

HP also took time out to crow about its standing among SMEs, claiming that it now has alliances with "the five major global independent software vendors" targeting small businesses: Citrix Systems, Microsoft, Oracle, Sage and SAP.