Small businesses looking to set up ship with e-mail, file and printer sharing, and a Web presence have options such as Microsoft's Small Business Server, or even Linux distributions that come with all the software you need (although setup and configuration isn't for the faint of heart).

For a Linux option that is simple to set up and configure, consider the EmergeCore IT-100 IT in a Box appliance. The IT-100 is a handy single-point product for file sharing, Web and FTP serving and e-mail. For most end users the cost will be part of a long-term service agreement with an ISP and shouldn't be a factor in deciding to go with the product.

Features and apps

EmergeCore's business proposition is aimed squarely at the ISP. With prices for high-speed DSL or cable continuing to drop, it's imperative for ISPs to offer some additional value to its business customers. The IT-100 offers several features that you'd normally expect to get with a higher-end server, but in a package not much larger than a small router.

The hardware portion of the IT-100 is a standard set of functions - including four 10/100 Ethernet ports, an 802.11b wireless access point, two USB 2.0 ports for attaching an external hard drive or printer, and 16G-bytes of internal user disk space. The box itself is not much bigger than a DSL modem/router combination box that many service providers are offering to customers.

The IT-100 has the basics covered with e-mail, FTP and Web servers ready to go out-of-the-box. Each component must be individually configured for use through a simple Web-based configuration screen. The system includes a Web site creation tool called Web Builder that can quickly create a basic Web site. It's comparable to similar offerings from ISP vendors such as Verizon for creating a basic home page. Web Builder offers several screens where you choose from a list of site categories or themes, add contact information and choose what type of site navigation will be displayed. Overall the process is straightforward and would work for creating a simple Web site.

Configuring client e-mail programs to use the IT-100 took only a few steps. The EmergeCore Web site offers several how-to stories, including how to configure Outlook to talk to an IT-100 mail server. It didn't offer information for other e-mail clients, although the information provided in the "Outlook How-To" was generic enough that we could configure Mozilla Thunderbird to work with it.