Linksys
SPA9000 IP Telephony System: $395
www.linksys.com

Increasingly, small businesses are looking to IP telephony as the answer to per-minute long distance and frustratingly high rates from traditional carriers. The concern, of course, in switching to Internet-based service is QoS. Linksys' SPA9000 puts the small business customer's mind at ease by accommodating up to four separate service providers in one affordable device. Out of the box, its IP PBX supports four IP phones—upgradeable to a max of 16 through a license key. Additionally, a pair of ports enables connectivity for an analog phone and fax machine.

Feature-rich, the SPA9000 offers an auto-attendant for intelligent call routing, three-way conferencing, an intercom, music on hold, and forwarding. Administration of all those features is handled through a simple Web-based interface, while each connected IP phone is automatically detected and registered.

Making a move from POTS to VoIP can be nerve-wracking for an SMB customer, but Linksys helps mitigate the young technology's occasional shortcomings, adding plenty of features and an attractive price point.

Quantum
DLT-S4 Tape Drive: $4,999
www.quantum.com

You might find that it's harder to sell tape in a market quickly warming up to disk-based storage. Every once in a while, a product comes along that reminds you why tape can be such a solid value for customers with lots of information to store, though. Quantum's DLT-S4 is such a product, offering massive capacity, great performance, and a solid value.

The drive connects through a SCSI Ultra320 interface, which Quantum rates at a phenomenal 120 MBps transferring compressed data. And it's a good thing that the DLT-S4 is so fast, since each tape holds 800GB of information natively with a compressed ceiling of 1.6 TB. When you divide out the cost of media, Quantum's solution pushes storage down to $.06 per gigabyte.

Granted, a product like the DLT-S4 doesn't replace disk backup in a small business environment. Instead, you'll find businesses archiving disk-based storage onto tape where it can help long-term and less expensively.

Seagate
500GB NL35
Series SATA: $329
www.seagate.com

The beauty of Serial attached storage is that it goes hand in hand with SATA. SMB customers can freely connect both storage technologies to the same SAS controller without worrying about compatibility. But just because any SATA drive will work in a SAS environment doesn't mean resellers should use desktop drives intended for light workloads.

Instead, lean on an enterprise-class SATA drive, which is designed to handle the 24x7 demands of an always-on server. Seagate's 500GB NL35 is a perfect example, built for nearline RAID arrays emphasizing low cost-per-gigabyte. The drive is protected by a five-year warranty in addition to beefed-up tolerances to the rotational vibrations experienced in a chassis housing several drives. A workload feature monitors temperature and activity, protecting against overwork damage. Meanwhile, one-step microcode downloads simplify field upgrades for advanced administrators.

Despite a bit of extra durability and always-on optimizations, Seagate's 500GB NL35 is priced similarly to the desktop Barracuda 7200.9.

ZyXEL
PL-100 Powerline
Ethernet Adapter: $89
www.zyxel.com

Network installations are a pure bane to VARs unaccustomed to running CAT5 up and down the insides of walls—doubly so if you're working on a multi-storey building. Wireless, the easy fallback, isn't always viable either, since physical obstructions and concerns over security often get in the way. That's usually the point where a reseller will call in a contractor to get the job done.

Now, Powerline Ethernet is an option, as well, thanks to ZyXEL's PL-100. The modem-like device accepts an RJ-45 connector from a client and sends its encrypted signal into a wall outlet. One network can consist of up to 16 adapters running at speeds as high as 85 Mbps. For anyone considering a standard Wi-Fi infrastructure, this is even faster. And priced well under $100, the value should be clear to any SMB operating out of an older building without Ethernet cabling.

Tyan
Tank GT25
Server Barebones: $1,350
www.tyan.com

The Bensley launch was successful not just because Intel's technology took Xeon to a whole new level but also because the company's partners were immediately ready with a supporting infrastructure. Tyan, Supermicro, Iwill, and ASUS all sprang forth with motherboards and barebones platforms ready for the freshly announced processors. In turn, resellers were granted immediate access to technology already forecasted to be popular.

Tyan's Tank GT25 consists of a 1U rackmount chassis and dual-socket LGA 771 motherboard. There are actually three configurations available: one featuring dual 650W redundant power supplies, another with one 650W unit and SAS hard drive support, and a third similarly configured, only limited to SATA. No less than twelve FB-DIMM memory slots give all three models a 48GB ceiling while a mix of PCI-X and PCI Express take care of peripheral expansion. Given an expansive array of standard storage, networking, and management extras, VARs will be hard pressed to find a barebones chassis with better value.