Dell servers hit new low

Dell last week introduced a low-end server for small businesses that are looking for their first server or that want to replace a peer-to-peer network.

The PowerEdge 400SC is preinstalled with Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. It starts at $1,000. The 400SC joins the more powerful 600SC and 1600SC at the bottom end of Dell’s server product line. It is the smallest server Dell manufactures.

Dell claims its low-end SC servers are ideal for small and midsized businesses (SMB) with limited IT resources. Because the servers ship with an operating system and messaging software, there are few dampers to deployment. IDC says SMBs with fewer than 1,000 employees will account for 53% of the growth in IT spending this year.

The PowerEdge 400SC will be available with a 2-GHz Celeron or a 2.4-GHz Pentium 4 processor, 128K bytes of cache memory and a 40G byte IDE drive operating at 7,200 RPM. It can ship with Windows 2000 Server or Linux. Optionally, users can buy a 400SC configured with as much as 2G bytes of RAM. It ships with an on-board network adapter and is available only in a tower configuration. The 400SC can also support an additional IDE drive or two SCSI drives for attaching local storage.

Without the operating or messaging systems, the 400SC is available now for as little as $400.