From VARs to Faster Chips--Computer Show Eyes the Little Guy

Small businesses, no longer the Rodney Dangerfields of computer buyers, are getting some respect at the Comdex computer show in Las Vegas.

Small-business products have a higher profile this year at Comdex, where about 200,000 computer professionals are gathering this week.

Hewlett-Packard, for instance, is here promoting its newly formed small/medium business marketing unit. “We see small business as a lucrative and fast-growing market but one where vendors can lose their shirts if they aren’t rational and willing to think outside of the box,” said Kim Tchang, director of the group.

Tchang’s group is involved in the full product life cycle, from conception to after-sale service and support. She oversees the small-business markets for a variety of product lines, including PCs, printers, network servers and scanners.

The company has set up a Web site (https://www.hp.com/go/smallbiz) specifically for this market. The site promotes HP products, naturally, but it also features small-business news and tips from columnists Jane Applegate and Alice Bredin.

Unlike a growing number of PC companies, Hewlett-Packard does not use its Web site or any other method to sell directly to end users, but rather goes through a variety of resellers, including dealers and what the company refers to as “small business solutions experts.” These are sales organizations that the computer industry refers to as value-added resellers, or VARs. The difference between a VAR and a regular dealer, in theory, is that a VAR will provide more extensive hand-holding, system configuration, training and support. The HP Web site can point you to both dealers and VARs.

Tchang promotes VARs because “small businesses don’t have MIS [management information system] managers,” she said. Such a dealer, she argues, can help a small business plan purchases and support its equipment after the sale.

VARs can be a tremendous resource to small-business customers, but it’s important that you choose one carefully and get second opinions on VAR recommendations.

Like any other dealer, VARs make their money as a percentage of the sale as well as special incentives that companies offer exclusively to them. Be certain the VAR isn’t trying to sell you equipment and software you don’t need, and compare the VAR’s prices with other sources’.

It might, in some cases, be worth spending more on products if the VAR is truly adding value. I’d ask what type of support it offers, how fast it will respond, and what backup systems it has in place in case it can’t immediately solve any after-sale problems.

Robert L. Scheier, industry editor at VAR Business magazine, recommends that you “don’t go to a VAR if you’re looking for the absolute rock-bottom price, because that’s not what VARs do best. Go to a VAR if you want one-stop shopping for your entire technology solution.”

Not surprisingly, Tchang recommends that customers choose a single vendor and equipment provider whose initials happens to be HP. By purchasing all HP equipment from a qualified VAR, the customer, she argues, is assured of getting a well-integrated system.

There’s nothing wrong with HP equipment, but there’s no compelling reason to buy all your equipment from HP or any other single manufacturer. I’ve used HP printers and scanners with lots of different computers and have had no trouble hooking up other companies’ peripherals to HP computers.

Intel is also using Comdex to make a push into the small-business market. The company this week launched its small-business Web site, https://www.intel.com/businesscomputing/small. As with the HP site, you’ll find some general news and information for small business as well as company marketing pitches.

Intel’s main pitch at Comdex is to get everyone to upgrade their PCs to Pentium II processors. Almost every time Intel introduces a new level of technology, it goes on a marketing campaign to convince people they really need the extra speed and power of the new chip, as if last year’s state-of-the-art product is no longer adequate.

Willy Agatstein, Intel’s small-business marketing manager, argues that small businesses will get significant value from the Pentium II.

“A lot of small businesses are doing their own brochures and advertising that are image-intensive and require lots of performance,” he told me.

I’ve been looking at machines with 300-megahertz Pentium II CPUs and I can testify that they run faster than the 200-MHz standard Pentium machine I use. But the speed difference, for most applications, is trivial. You’ll get far more performance for the dollar by making sure you have plenty of random access memory and more than enough hard disk space.

If you’re buying new machines, the Pentium II is worth considering if the price difference between it and the standard Pentium is relatively small. But unless you’re working with large images or doing a great deal of number-crunching, there’s no reason to rush out to buy a new machine if the one you’re using is doing the job reasonably well.

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Lawrence J. Magid can be e-mailed at magid@latimes.com; his Web site is at https://www.larrysworld.com; on AOL, the keyword is larrymagid.