Small Business News Briefs

Gateway Goes Zero-Percent
Gateway is offering zero-percent leasing on key business product lines through the end of the year. Small- and medium-sized businesses, government agencies and educational institutions are now able to procure Gateway notebooks, desktop PCs, servers and storage products at zero-percent leasing rates through the end of the year.

Jocelyne Attal, executive vice president of Gateway’s business unit, said by offering the zero-percent leasing option, the company is making new hardware purchases easier for its business customers.

“Businesses today need to extend their budgets to succeed in highly competitive environments,” Attal said. “Gateway understands these pressures.”

Gateway currently offers a broad range of front- and back-office business products, from plasma screens to rack-mount servers. In August, the company made its debut into the storage market with the introduction of the Gateway 850 SCSI JBOD and Gateway 820 LTO Autoloader.

The company plans to release several new storage, server, desktop and notebook products through the remainder of the year — all of which will be available with zero-percent leasing for businesses.

Gateway’s introduction of zero-percent leasing options is the latest move from a company that faces stiff competition for other computer makers, such as Dell, HP and IBM. Dell started slashing prices in July, discounting some items as much as 22 percent. HP and IBM have responded in turn, as the battle for the hearts and hard-drives behind small businesses continue to rage onward.

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All-In-One Wireless Router
NETGEAR, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based networking hardware maker, released a new wireless router with a built in firewall and printer-server capabilities. The FWG114P ProSafe 802.11g Wireless Firewall with USB Print Server is and all-in-one business-class wired and wireless networking solution designed for small businesses.

Compliant with the IEEE 802.11g wireless standard, the FWG114P enables the wireless support of bandwidth-intensive applications such as video streaming, large file transfers and video conferencing. The networking solution enables small businesses to easily connect to a broadband Internet feed and maintain a secure Ethernet-based wireless network for sharing Internet access, printers and other network resources.

The FWG114P combines a router, four-port 10/100 switch, 802.11b/g compliant 54Mbps wireless access point, USB print server, firewall, and advanced security features making it one of the most secure, complete networking products available for small businesses at this time.

Small businesses need their network infrastructures to be cost-effective, easy-to-manage, secure, and able to accommodate rapid growth, because they don’t typically have large IT budgets and dedicated network administrators. With this in mind, NETGEAR design the FWG114P is an all-in-one wired and wireless networking solution for easy installation and management through a browser-based Smart Wizard Install Assistant. The Wizard automatically detects the ISP connection type and guides users through each step of the installation process.

The FWG114P incorporates security features such as Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which is available via a free firmware upgrade that is expected to be delivered by Dec. 2003, Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall, Network Address Translation (NAT), Denial of Service (DoS) attack protection, intrusion detection, and 128-bit wired equivalent privacy (WEP) encryption.

The NETGEAR FWG114P ProSafe 802.11g Wireless Firewall with USB Print Server is backed by a three-year warranty and around-the-clock technical support. It will be available via leading retailers, direct marketers, e-commerce sites, and resellers early in October and is being offered at a list price of $276.

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Interland Embraces .NET
Interland is a Web hosting and online service provider based in Atlanta. The company’s blueHALO shared hosting system is popular among small- and medium-sized businesses — and the service just got better.

Interland has upgraded its Windows-based hosting systems to include Microsoft’s .NET Framework 1.1. The upgrade allows shared hosting customers access to one of the most powerful operating systems available, as well as to some of Microsoft’s newest software technologies for connecting information, people, systems and devices.

Because Interland is a Microsoft Certified Partner, the company was able to take advantage of early access to the Windows Server 2003 environment before the software makes its public debut in October. Interland already upgraded its existing blueHALO shared hosting Windows-based customers to the Microsoft .NET Framework at no additional charge. All new Windows accounts on the blueHALO platform will automatically run on the Microsoft .NET Framework.

Interland is the second major Web hosting firm to make Windows Server 2003 systems available to smaller businesses. Last week Verio announced that its Windows Server 2003 system was up and running. As the official release of Windows Server 2003 draw near, more and more service providers will be updating their Microsoft hosting platforms in the weeks to come.

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Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing addresses the technology needs of small businesses, which are defined as businesses with fewer than 500 employees and/or less than $7 million in annual sales.

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