Dell rolls out new Vostro notebooks for small businesses 9 March, 2010 By Mark Cox

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"Vostro's target market is the sub 25 market, companies without a full time tech guy, and it focuses on the key pain points of small business, said Andre Valiquette, Director of SMB Marketing, Dell Canada. "It also meets their cash flow challenges by being able to compete with the low retail price point."

There are four models in the 3000 series -- the 3300 3400 3500 and 3700 -- with the second digit indicating screen size, 3300 for example having a 13 inch screen. All feature the latest Intel Core processor technology, including, the optional, industry's first, Core i7 Quad Core processor available on the Vostro 3700.

"The market this year has shown signs of price stability, so products are featuring higher specifications for the same price, as opposed to the same specs at a lower price," Valiquette said. "We've hit the proverbial floor on starting price points."

The improved specs include embedded webcam and microphone for collaboration through videoconferencing on all the Vostro 3000 laptops. The Vostro 3500 and 3700 also offer the option of high definition WLED screens and up to 1GB of NVIDIA GeForce discrete graphics. A built-in HDMI port lets users make high definition presentations to clients when required.

"There is also wireless access across the board as a standard feature rather than optional," Valiquette said.

The available IT support services also differentiate the Vostros from the consumer laptops of both Dell and other vendors that compete with it in the small business space. DellConnect allows tech-support agents to troubleshoot and help resolve system issues remotely. And businesses can choose their own level of 24x7 IT support with optional Dell ProSupport services.

"The availability of professional services support makes it very different from the consumer Inspiron product," Valiquette said. "IT support is there for a product that starts at $499 [for the recently-released Vostro V13]."

Valiquette does not, however, think these Vostros are competing with netbooks.

"In small businesses, by extension their work PC is often their personal PC and so it needs more capacity than netbooks can offer," Valiquette said. "Netbooks have a business purpose, but it's in a cloud environment where they access their information through the browser. That's where customers and partners should look to implement netbooks."

Valiquette also noted that selling these Vostros has been made easier by a great simplification of SKUs. These have 64 SKUs at present, and while that might go up a a little, it is still down exponentially from the previous generation.

Starting prices for the Vostro 3300 are $USD 669, for the 3400 and the 3500, $649 and for the $3700, $679.