Item #4 in my 23 confessions post said that there would soon be a difference between our offerings for home users and small businesses. Today, we're introducing our Vostro product line of small business systems. Many of you saw that Michael will be on job in New York for a Town Hall meeting. Beyond that, we're hosting events in Second Life and events and in worldwide locations like San Francisco, Toronto, London, Paris, Munich, Singapore, Beijing, Hong Kong and India.
So why a new brand? It's no secret that most small business owners don't have the luxury of employing a full-time IT employee or staff. That means most small businesses are looking for products that are easy to purchase, set up, easy to use on a daily basis, and easy to manage over time. It goes beyond hardware—they also need services and tools that help keep their systems performing and make it easier to troubleshoot when things go wrong. The purpose of the Vostro brand is to address all those needs for small businesses customers that have anywhere from 1 – 25 employees.
First step is introducing new products—more on those later. We're augmenting those by introducing dedicated sales and support teams who work exclusively to support our small business customers. We're also bringing tools that make life easier for small business customers, including Automated PC Tune-Up which helps simplify routine maintenance options, Dell Network Assistant is designed to help in the setup, monitoring, and troubleshooting an repair of a small business network, and the Dell DataSafe Online Backup to provide inexpensive remote backup and file-sharing capability. All Vostro systems come free with one-year subscriptions to each of these tools. The hyperlinks will take you to StudioDell videos that explain each service in more detail. All Vostro systems come with a 30-day money back guarantee with no restocking or return shipping fees.
In terms of software, small business customers can choose between Windows XP and Vista. These systems can be ordered with a 90-day Internet security subscription or none at all.
Update 7/20: Take a look at this video for more on Dell's view of trialware.
From a hardware standpoint, we're introducing four new notebooks, two new desktops and some new accessories for small business customers:
- Vostro 1000, 1400, 1500, and 1700 notebooks – All of these new models are based on Intel's Santa Rosa chipset, come with a host of mobile connectivity options, optional webcams for video conference calls, and more. All but the Vostro 1000 will support an optional discrete graphics card.
- Vostro 200 minitower and slim-sized desktops offer a range of Core 2 Duo processors, up to 4GB RAM, up to two hard drives, and either integrated or discrete graphics cards with up to 256MB RAM.
- The Dell 1320c provides sharp, vivid color laser prints for under $300
- The E198WFP widescreen 19" flat panel provides lots of real estate at a good value
For more details on the products and an overview services and warranty details, take a look at www.dell.com/webelieve.
In the vlog, Kirk Schell from the Vostro team provides more insight into the Vostro brand and where we hope to take it long term, and Michael Morton, the lead designer behind the Vostro linueup, talks about our design philosophy behind these products.
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