Vectra 500: An ideal solution for small businesses

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): In this country, small-scale business owners have reason to envy their North American counterparts. In the United States, small businesses have long been recognized as the engine of economic growth.

The same is true in many other parts of the world. Small business entrepreneur associations (there are hundreds of them in the United States) have the power and influence to lobby in Washington, D.C. In contrast, our small businesses are simply considered orphans. Having been involved in a joint effort to establish a small business myself, I could write dozens of stories about how difficult it is to get ahead among our big conglomerates and bureaucracy.

Nonetheless, one thing is certain. Whether in the U.S. or here in Indonesia, technology can be a tremendous leverage for small businesses. Take the telephone and the fax machine, for instance. I'm sure that by now the vast majority of small-scale operations have found out how essential these gadgets are to their business. On the other hand, it is also safe to say that still a lot of small business owners have yet to take advantage of personal computers to facilitate and even speed up their business processes.

Why do small and home-based business owners generally tend to be rather slow in adopting computers? Their problems are actually universal. First they are not sure whether the computer can really raise their revenues or decrease their costs. Second, there is the usual fear of the technology.

What do these people actually need? Obviously, they need reliable computers that do not require a high level of technical knowledge to operate. Next, as confirmed by the fax that I've just received from one of the readers of this column, people also want to know that their vendors will provide them with dependable technical support. Furthermore, they also need an opportunity to test the use of computers in their business without having to make a huge investment up front. This would mean that financing is a very desirable option.

At the recent HP press off-site meeting in Hong Kong, I got news that HP has offered a solution for small and medium-sized business owners who want to computerize their operation for some time. Being sort of a small-business operator myself, I was naturally excited about the news. I wasted no time in pursuing more information about the program, and this led me to the opportunity to chat with Pak Adhiprabawa, president director of PT Hewlett-Packard Finance Indonesia (HPFI) in Jakarta.

The vendor's financing program is part of their Small Business-Small Office (SBSO) initiative, and it is now available in Indonesia, South Korea and Singapore -- with other countries following soon. According to their definition, an SBSO -- I still prefer the term small office home office or SOHO, though -- is a business organization with one to 100 PCs but no permanent MIS support. Examples will be law firms, architects, consultants and real estate agents.

The Vectra 500 Series PCs from HP have been designed specifically for these small and medium size businesses. According to Pak Adhi, small and medium business owners will be able to lease such PCs through his two types of financing programs later on, after his new company has put all the legal infrastructure in place. Business owners who require financing up to US$50,000 will be considered big tickets and will be financed directly by HPFI. Those who require up to a couple of PCs will be handled by HP's resellers, who will be better equipped to assess the prospective buyers' eligibility.

What does this imply? It means that small business owners with tight budgets will be able to test the water and avoid the huge strain on their cash flow. In other words, they can start using PCs for their operation without having to invest substantially. I really think such a program would be a definite boon to small business owners in Indonesia.

Medium-sized businesses have an additional advantage besides being able to deal directly with HPFI. The company will make sure that their customers will not suffer from the obsolescence blues in the future as technology advances. After an agreed period of time, for instance, a portion of the PCs will automatically be replaced with new ones based on HP's Technology Protection Program (TPP).

Vectra 500

Ok, the availability of financing meets the first requirement of a business owner. Now let's see how the second requirement -- the need for reliability and ease of use -- is being met. I requested a demo unit to look at, and I got to play around with a Pentium 200 MHz-based Vectra 500 tower PC for ten days. I really like the machine.

The box contained an HP keyboard, an HP mouse, a pair of headphones and a microphone set for computer telephony. HP didn't lend me the monitor, so I used my own Sony 2038. To help non- technical users install this PC quickly, all the ports at the back of the case were clearly labeled. With such a powerful CPU, we will surely need quite some time to outgrow this machine. To put it in perspective, today I'm still using a 133 MHz machine that I assembled myself, and I'm still very happy with it. The 200 MHz power will certainly last a long time.

Other features of this particular Vectra 500 include 16 MB of RAM, an S3 graphics card with 1 MB RAM (you might want to add another 1 MB so that you can get more colors than just 256 at the 1,024 by 768 resolution). It also came with a 2.4 GB IDE hard disk. Well, you may later add a Jaz or SyJet drive for more storage capacity when the need arises.

Unlike the increasingly popular Home PCs, the Vectra 500 was far from being fancy-looking. That was no surprise, since for businesses, the most important feature is functionality. The chassis was very sturdy and well-built. A lid covered the floppy diskette and CD-ROM drives. This would slide up the moment I pressed the square button on its top.

Taking off the metal cover for the first time was quite difficult, but it became very easy after the third time. I found one very minor assembling fault, though, and I fixed it in less than 20 seconds: The floppy diskette drive was not properly seated inside its bay. Incidentally, you will need a special hex screwdriver for this machine.

Other features

A friend once told me that he thought HP PCs were a good choice in places with no air-conditioning. Compared to PCs of other brands, he said, they tended to have better protection against heat. When I opened up the case I found the secret. This mid-sized tower PC, like other Vectras that I've seen, had a special air duct that blew air straight into the heat sink of the CPU. The quiet fan was also regulated by a sensor, so it ran only when the processor requires extra cooling. In my test, the PC remained cool even after I had left it on for hours. The motherboard was designed by HP.

Toward the back of the chassis there was a space for another 3.5" hard disk. There were also two 5.25" accessible bays available, so that you could add a removable hard disk drive or tape backup. The CD-ROM was an engineering sample, therefore I wasn't able to find the name of its maker. There were four empty slots for RAM SIMMs, and you could install a total of 128 MB altogether.

Although this demo unit -- which was still a prototype unit -- didn't have it, HP promises that the shipping ones will have a quick restore CD -- like the one that IBM Aptiva and Compaq Presario have. The machine came with Windows 95 already pre- installed. The on-line documentations were also very complete, and the diagnostics tools told me every detail of the PC that I could think of.

Another important inclusion was the remote assistance facility. Carbon Copy 32 was pre-loaded, and this will enable an HP technician to troubleshoot, configure the system and even install updated drivers from their service center in Tanah Abang. The modem in this unit was a DSP-based one, which also functioned as the sound card.

Unlike the keyboard, monitor and mouse ports, the ports on this modem and sound card were not as clearly labeled. Besides, there was only one port for the RJ11 phone jack instead of two as we commonly find in other modems. You'll need a T-connector to hook up an extra telephone set to the system.

Final word

All in all, HP Vectra 500 is an ideal solution for start-up or small business owners. It is designed not as a showcase of technology but more as a business tool. Since most of its target users may not be very technical savvy, HP has made serious efforts to ensure that the setting up is as easy as it can get and they've done a good job. Besides, enough computing power is available even for power users and CAD engineers, and there's still room to grow. When the time comes, the users can even buy an HP network kit and install a peer-to-peer network without any professional help.

My hope, of course, is that other vendors will follow this example. Small businesses will greatly benefit from initiatives such as this one from HP. Just remember, they need solutions that help them grow because they don't have to worry about the technology.