Vectra 500: An ideal solution for small businesses

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.