Intel
S5000VSA Server Board:
$409
www.intel.com

the value underlying bensley is strength in a platform, processor, chipset, motherboard, and software ecosystem developed concurrently with stability and performance in mind. You'll sell your customer a Xeon processor, naturally, and a motherboard based on one of Intel's 5000-series chipsets. Pitching an Intel motherboard serves to reinforce that platform message.

The S5000VSA is great board for the small and medium business crowd, in part because it's so versatile and also due to pure integration. For example, Intel's configuration tool mates the S5000VSA and SC5299-E chassis, which works in pedestal or rackmount environments. And while the board accepts up to two Xeon CPUs, starting your customer off with one dual-core chip and upgrading down the road is a great way to add scalability. Eight memory slots offer room to expand. A good mix of PCI-X and PCI Express slots facilitates plenty of room for add-ons, too.

LEXMARK
T642 Laser Printer: $799
www.lexmark.com

small business laser printers are plentiful, so resellers should diligently pick wheat from the chaff. Lexmark's new T642 undeniably falls into the former category as it delivers solid performance and a modest price tag at the same time. Lexmark endows the T642 with a 457 MHz processor and 64 MB of memory to push up to 43 monochrome pages per minute, the first of which takes just 8.5 seconds.

A quick glance at the printer's spec sheet reveals attractive versatility. In addition to the media types you'd expect to see supported, Lexmark makes special arrangements for recycled and heavy media, plus specialty forms. A long list of optional accessories serves to expand the T642's paper handling, network connectivity, and unique application support, such as printing PDFs and bar codes. Operating system compatibility is even more expansive, covering Windows, Linux, Novell, Apple, and Citrix MetaFrame. You'll even find special concessions for data encryption and confidential printing.

Trend Micro
NeatSuite for SMB 25-user: $1,554
www.trendmicro.com

Trend Micro's NeatSuite for SMB software package should appeal to resellers in a couple of ways. For starters, Trend is regarded to be one of the most VAR-friendly vendors out there, offering a solid channel program. Also, the NeatSuite package is very comprehensive, rolling antivirus, content security, and anti-spam into one offering with an optional anti-spyware component on the side.

NeatSuite takes care of gateway, server, and desktop protection all in one fell swoop. The package is consequently easy to maintain, as it's manageable from a single Web console. Each desktop client with the software is locked down to prevent tampering, while Internet usage gets logged for easier tracking and policy enforcement. NeatSuite proactively scans unprotected protocols for threats, neutralizing malicious payloads before they're delivered. Trend Micro's update service keeps NeatSuite up to date, too. Should a customer's system accidentally get infected, integrated disaster recovery tools help clean and restore affected systems.

Toshiba
IK-WB15A IP Network Camera: $715
www.toshiba.com

toshiba is out to shock everyone who still generalizes about
Web-enabled cameras and poor picture quality. The IK-WB15A sports a monstrous 1280x960 native resolution, which it's able to stream at up to 7.5 frames per second. A smooth 30 frames are possible if you drop to 640x480.

The PoE-enabled camera is also remotely controllable, offering 112 degrees of panning and up to 54 degrees of tilt. You can even set it to auto-patrol for extra coverage. An internal sensor detects day and night operation, automatically switching to monochrome when ambient light starts to fade.

Toshiba's IK-WB15A is a notch above your entry-level surveillance camera and is priced accordingly. Plenty of advanced extras give the product undeniable SMB appeal.

AMD
Opteron 2214: $523
www.amd.com

Although it has stuck with DDR memory technology FOR more than
a couple of years, AMD is finally transitioning to DDR2. According to the company, 667 and 800 MHz modules are fast enough to let the Athlon 64 and Opteron processors really stretch out, whereas 400 and 533 MHz speeds couldn't keep up with vanilla DDR.

The new core revision yields an updated naming convention—1000-, 2000-, and 8000-series chips replace the old 100-, 200-, and 800-series. As before, the SMB-friendly 2000-series CPUs work in pairs. They aren't pin-compatible with older platforms though, due to a 1,207-pin socket interface.

Resellers should expect plenty of value from the Opteron 2214, which doesn't tip the scales with regard to price but still clocks in at 2.2 GHz and features AMD Virtualization, PowerNow! technology, and SSE3 instructions. Platform support is still falling into place, but AMD's next-generation Opteron is good to go.