HP has announced new solutions and technology along with an expanded entrepreneur program to enable small and midsize businesses (SMBs) aimed at driving growth, improving employee productivity, and protecting assets.

SMBs, a $234-billion market, face daily challenges that include controlling costs, managing employee productivity and gaining access to credit. HP says these new offerings are designed to address those challenges. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

HP also has expanded its investment with 40 new training centers in its global program, HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs (HP LIFE), which empowers SMBs to create new revenue streams. Since 2007, HP has invested more than $20 million into the program, resulting in the creation of more than an estimated 20,000 jobs and more than approximately 6,500 new businesses.

SMBs, a $234-billion market, face daily challenges that include controlling costs, managing employee productivity and gaining access to credit.

New SMB-attuned products include:

• HP ProLiant ML110 G7, an entry-level server that is simple to deploy and manage. It supports basic office applications such as web messaging, small databases, file and print, as well as small vertical applications.
  
• HP ProLiant DL120 G7 server, an entry-level rack-optimized server running a wider range of dedicated applications, including IT infrastructure applications, web, messaging, file and print operations, small internet applications, as well as shared web access.
  
• HP V1810-48G web-managed switch. This 48-port switch easily integrates into existing multivendor networks and accommodates increasing performance requirements as businesses grow and develop.
  
• HP V1410 unmanaged Fast Ethernet switch series. The IEEE Energy Efficiency Ethernet compliant switches are operational out of the box to offer SMBs an affordable entry-level networking solution.
  
• HP P2000 G3 Modular Smart Array (MSA). An entry-level storage solutions to support the VMware API for Array Integration and VMware vCenter, the HP P2000 MSA allows SMB clients to get enterprise-class performance and VMware manageability. In addition, HP Insight Control Storage Module Manager for VMware vCenter enables management and monitoring of server, storage and networking resources for virtual machines within the vCenter console.

Business protection

The explosive growth of data and email is creating increased risk and complexity as well as recurring disaster recovery expenses for SMBs. Solutions designed for business protection include:

• HP Branch Office Consolidation. This turnkey solution offers business plan and management software to help SMBs simplify, automate, and integrate infrastructure to increase efficiency, reduce operational risk and support branch offices.
• HP Business Risk Mitigation, which includes configurations for servers, storage and network upgrades, as well management software for PCs, printers and other technology, to deliver high-availability data protection, security and offsite disaster recovery.
• HP PC Backup Services (PDF), which reliably back up files on employee PCs ensuring rapid data restore in the event of an outage, corrupted files or a lost or stolen PC.

Revenue opportunities
Leveraging data to gain insight and make decisions is increasingly crucial to establishing a competitive advantage. Until now, this has been too complex and costly for many midsize businesses. New solutions designed to address that include:

The explosive growth of data and email is creating increased risk and complexity as well as recurring disaster recovery expenses for SMBs.

• HP Business Decision Appliance. This complete, highly simplified business intelligence (BI) solution brings together platforms from HP and Microsoft to deliver information to everyone in an organization.
  
• HP Business Data Warehouse Appliance includes preinstalled and preconfigured software in a single platform to leverage the power of real-time data analysis.

To help companies finance the new solutions, HP Financial Services, the company’s leasing and life cycle asset management services division, is offering two financing options for businesses in the United States and Canada on HP equipment priced between $1,500 and $250,000. The new financing option offers a zero percent, 12-month lease with $1 purchase option or a zero percent, 36-month lease with fair market value purchase option.

I have to admit, I've been a bit confused about HP's SMB intentions over the past few years. There has been quite a bit of back and forth about how aggressively to pursue this opportunity. It looks like they have made up their mind in favor of hot pursuit, which makes sense given that this may be the leading adoption edge of the cloud and mobile era.

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