IBM Corp has announced more aggressive pricing on new models from its existing server lines targeted at the small business market. Big Blue has positioned models from the RS/6000, AS/400 and Netfinity lines to appeal directly to companies with 1,000 or fewer employees – which account for about 80% of the world’s workforce and 45% of global IT spending. The new machines all come ready to run Lotus Domino productivity and web server software. The cheapest of the lot, the Netfinity 3500, will start at $2,365, can support up to 200 Domino users and comes with the Domino Intranet Starter Pack web server software. The AS/400e-170 now has an upgraded operating system with Java support and goes for $10,000. Higher up the scale is the RS/6000 F50, which comes with IBM’s AIX operating system, Lotus Domino Go web server and Netscape FastTrack server. It starts at $19,900. IBM says the new server models will be available next month and will be sold through its existing business partners – both ISVs and those in the hardware arena. As a further incentive to small businesses, various financing options will be made available to both business partners and end users.
