Dell woos small businesses

Dell has launched a new range of machines and services for small businesses today in its latest bid to regain market share.

The company points out that 99 percent of European businesses have less than ten staff, and that few have dedicated IT departments, which means they need a different class of help and support than home users or large enterprises.

It announced four notebooks and two desktops under a new Vostro brand – the name is Italian for 'yours'. All come with a one-year business hardware support guarantee, and tools to assist in setting them up and networking them.

Services include backup of up to 30Gbytes of data, automated tune-ups, and an online support centre.

Dell has also pledged to remove all unwanted trialware from new Vostros, though security software will be included by default.

The entry-level Vostro 1000 notebook uses a dual-core AMD processor, according to the Dell blurb, though this was not mentioned at the launch press conference, perhaps in deference to the presence of Intel's UK country manager Graham Palmer. Prices start at £329.

The stablemate Vostro 1400, 1500 and 1700 models are described as using 'optional' Intel Core Duos, with up to 4GBytes of memory.

The Vostro 200 desktop comes in a choice of mini-tower and slim-tower formats, with a choice of Vista or XP. Prices start at £129, without a monitor.

Dell founder Michael Dell took back control of the company last year in the face of declining market share. Analysts partly blame the company's reliance on selling online at a time when computers are becoming commodity items sold in supermarkets.

A few days back it announced a new Inspiron consumer brand and a range of new home models.