HP rolled out multiple new products on March 28, and also rolled out a new attitude and focus on the small business market.

I've chided HP for lumping businesses with 1-1,000 employees under the "small and medium enterprise" tag, but the focus for this event was on the 1-99 employee company. HP feels this group buys in much the same way consumers buy, so HP can leverage its considerable retail presence.

Companies this size rarely have a full time technical support person on staff, so HP considers these folks essentially technically unmanaged. I disagree that companies on the upper end of that scale don't have a full time support person, but I do agree that person rarely has the experience and education to handle every technical support issue.

HP’s new product list covers the gamut except, oddly enough, printers. A new microtower desktop (dx2300) uses Intel processors as opposed to the slightly older and less expensive dx2250 outfitted with AMD processors. Both run Vista, but you can still get Windows XP or FreeDOS if you plan to put some other operating system on the box.

Storage-deprived companies can hang on a bit until the HP StorageWorks Media Vault Pro ships, or they can grab the new entry level HP ProLiant ML115 Server starting at $499. The server doesn't have an operating system included at that price, but HP will install server software from Microsoft, Red Hat, or Novell/SUSE Linux before delivery.

You can also add extra hard disks and create your own RAID for hardware fault tolerance more easily, and cheaply, than ever before. You will need to add memory, however, since 512MB of RAM doesn't go far enough on servers anymore.

The new laptops, 6515B (14.1 inch screen) and 6715B (15.4 inch screen) use AMD processors and are otherwise identical. Starting price is $649, which is a good price since it includes hard disk encryption, a motion sensor to park the hard disk heads to avoid damage when the laptop gets banged around, and a biometric fingerprint reader.

The rp5700 point of sale system now comes in a smaller case, has more horsepower, and 10 USB ports. I thought six USB ports on the old unit were enough, but HP says customers were actually filling all six ports. The only POS software available from HP remains the Microsoft Dynamics Point of Sale 2.0, but we can't blame them for that decision.

James Gaskin writes books (16 so far), articles and jokes about technology and real life from his home office in the Dallas area.