Hewlett-Packard is offering a new low-cost rack-mount server and blade as well as new CRM tools.
Hewlett-Packard, which has been building up a line-up of inexpensive hardware and software directed at businesses with limited IT resources, is now launching a pair of low-cost servers to add to the portfolio.
The x86-based hardware includes a new blade server, the ProLiant BL260c G5, and the ProLiant DL120—a 1U (1.75-inch), single-socket rack-mount system. Both systems offer a number of low-cost configurations, including a choice of Intel processors that range from the newer Xeon 5200 and 5400 series microprocessors down to the older Celeron and Pentium chips.
Both systems are available as of March 31.
With the new servers, HP is offering reasonable prices for both systems in an effort to reach out to midmarket businesses that need to build out their IT infrastructure but have limited resources and IT experience. The ProLiant blade starts at $1,199, while the rack-mount system starts at $699, said Steve Gillaspy, the group manager of HP’s Blade Systems.
While blades are usually considered an enterprise-class hardware, Gillaspy said the two-socket BL260c offers a complement to HP’s BladeSystem c3000—“Shorty” —which the Palo Alto, Calif., company introduced in 2007 as a way to bring the systems further into the midmarket.
“We are seeing blades increasingly deployed in what we would consider the midsized part of the market, not so much the ‘S’ in SMB, but definitely the midsized companies,” said Gillaspy. “These companies not only want to see the acquisition cost savings that blades provide but also the fact that they are much more power efficient and easier to deploy. We have taken a lot of pains in making sure that we have products that are specifically targeted to the midmarket around blades.”
There are certain price points that midmarket companies look for when considering blade servers and Gillaspy said HP has worked to create better, entry-level prices for its line of x86 blades. Midmarket businesses are running the same type of applications—Web 2.0, file and print software and Microsoft Exchange—with their blades as larger enterprises, Gillaspy said.
The difference is that smaller businesses lack the IT resources of their larger competitors.
To help with this, HP is also including software bundles with their blades. For example, HP is adding an Oracle Siebel CRM (customer resource management) software suite for midmarket customers as well as Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM software. For Linux users, HP has added five Oracle database configurations for ProLiant systems using open-source operating systems.
In addition to these software suites, the new HP servers are also equipped with the company’s Lights Out remote management software.
Finally, Gillaspy said that HP would soon begin offering Advanced Micro Devices quad-core Opteron processors—its Barcelona chips—across its ProLiant line. At its European conference earlier in March, HP introduced the first system to use the chip, which had been delayed due to an erratum.
Now that AMD has fixed the problem, HP will begin integrating the new Opteron chip across its ProLiant line. Gillaspy said the applications that midmarket companies use can benefit from additional processing cores.
“From a pricing standpoint and even a power consumption standpoint the [AMD Opteron processors] have stayed pretty constant so customers are realizing better performance by using multiple cores,” Gillaspy said.
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