Intel, Microsoft launch entry-level network servers

Microsoft and Intel this week unveiled a new "mini" network server

aimed at the market of small businesses. The system will let up to 25 computers

share files, printing and connect to the Internet. The products are designed

around inexpensive Celeron chips and run the Microsoft Windows NT operating

system. Two versions of the device will be sold; a $1,500, 366-megahertz model

with one 13 gigabyte hard-drive, and a 466-MHz model with 64 megabytes of RAM

and a 13-gigabyte main hard-drive, along with a second 13-gigabyte drive for

back-up.

It will sell for $2,000. The device can be set up and configured in less than

one hour, compared to several days often needed to set up more powerful servers.

"You can think of it as a network in a box. You can take it out of the box

and plug PCs into it," said Kirt Bailey, Intel's product manager for small

business networking.

For Microsoft the system is an ideal vehicle to drive NT-based networking

solutions into the market for small businesses, precisely the area where the

company is losing substantial ground to the Linux operating system. It also

opens the networking market to many businesses that lack the skills to set up

either more complicated NT or Linux networking infrastructures. "Where we

see it fitting is more at the entry level, small business part of the

marketplace," said Vince Mendillo, lead product manager for Windows NT

Embedded at Microsoft, who added that as a business gets bigger, they will

likely upgrade to Windows 2000.

Intel's Bailey said there were 7.5 million small businesses in the United

States with less than 50 employees and more than 30 million such operations

worldwide. "We believe there are significant opportunities for small

businesses to use this to start deploying their e-business infrastructure,"

he said.