Hewlett-Packard has unveiled a server targeting small to
medium-sized businesses that will also help its reseller network
generate revenue from services.
The tc2120 replaces the tc2110, said Paul Miller, director of
the platform group at HP. The server is not that much different
from HP PCs, but comes with a Grand Champion SL chipset from
Serverworks Inc. that enables the tc2120 to support up to 4Gbytes
of memory, 4 PCI (peripheral component interconnect) slots or RAID
(redundant array of independent disks) capability.
This means the tc2120 can be used as a server with more
demanding workloads than a PC could handle, Miller said.
HP will promote the tc2120 heavily through its reseller network,
but it will also be available directly from HP's website and
through HP Services, Miller said. Since its merger with Compaq
Computer last year, HP has attempted to walk a fine line between
maintaining its traditional strength among channel partners and
value-added resellers and promoting a direct sales model
popularised by competitor Dell.
"If you look at small to medium-sized businesses, they are
typically customers without an IT staff. They're looking for
someone not just to load the OS but to set up the network and
optimise the server with the rest of the infrastructure, and they
look at the reseller as their remote IT provider," Miller said.
HP thinks small and medium-sized business will be a growing
segment of the market for hardware and services over the next five
to 10 years, he said.
The tc2120 is available immediately worldwide through local
resellers or HP. A base configuration with a 1.8GHz Intel Celeron
processor, a 40Gbyte hard drive, 128Mbytes of DDR (double data
rate) SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM), and Gigabit Ethernet costs
$549.
Several fixed configurations are available with 2.53GHz Intel
Pentium 4 processors, and users can add memory and hard drive space
as needed, Miller said.