bMighty publisher/editor-in-chief Fredric Paul talks to laptop leaders HP and Toshiba -- and hears very different stories about what small and midsize companies actually want in their portable computers.
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When you're looking for a new portable computer for your small or midsize business, what do you think are the most important factors to consider?
Seems like a simple question, right? And an important one, because even as 2009 shapes up to be a terrible year for computer sales, portable computer sales are still expected to grow.
But recent discussions with execs from Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba America reveal a fair amount of disagreement on the topic among the people who make and sell these things. In the course of a single week, I had intriguing conversations with Cindy Zwerling, product marketing manager for business-to-business notebooks at Toshiba, and Brian Burch, director of SMB marketing for HP's Personal Systems Group.
Zwerling, for one, was quite candid about the tough market. "Corporate direct sales came to a screeching halt" in the fourth quarter of 2008, she reveals. "Purchases were frozen, no capital expenditures at all." She predicts a whopping 50% drop for all of 2009! Yet Zwerling sees SMBs as the key bellwether for laptops in the current economy. "SMBs are suffering less and recovering first," she says. That's been true in previous recessions and it's "true this time as well."
So, what do SMBs want in a laptop today? Both execs had lots to say on the topic. Sometimes they agreed, but other times they seemed to be talking about two completely separate things.
The Three Most Important Factors In Laptops: Price, Price, And Price
According to Toshiba's Zwerling, these are the top five things SMBs want in a laptop:
- Price is obviously the No. 1 driving factor. Some 45% of Toshiba's second-quarter laptop sales through the channel will be below $999, Zwerling says. And of the 50% of its sales that comprise 15.4-inch widescreen models, 60% of that is priced below $800. To keep up, Toshiba has cut prices on its entry-level business laptops from $529 in January to $479 in March.
- Windows XP Pro. Zwerling says 70% of SMBs are still using XP Pro, and all of Toshiba's Vista-powered business machines come with an XP Pro recovery disk in the box.
- Reliability. Toshiba touts its two-year warranty and the fact that it owns its own factories in China. Other factors include spill-resistant keyboards and 3-D accelerometers, bumpers, and chassis cushions to protect hard drives from shocks.
- Features. Toshiba laptops with Webcams come with a built-in business card reader, and the company says SMBs care about such features as USB Sleep & Charge and E-SATA/USB combo ports.
- Security. Toshiba uses Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) on all its laptops as well as fingerprint readers on most of its machines.
All of those factors make sense to me, but it's far from a complete list. What about performance? Portability? Connectivity?
About That Connectivity
For HP's Burch, though, the "hot list" is quite different. According to Burch, they key is notebooks with built-in 3G connectivity. "The newest, sexiest commercial notebooks for high-end rainmakers and key execs. The people hunting revenue.
"Companies will spend money to make those people more productive," Burch says.
They key is to get those people extra time in the day to sell, he explains, without having to search out a Wi-Fi connection to stay online. "Everyone can see the benefit of that," Burch says. Continuing on that theme of saving time, HP says its QuickLook technology gives busy SMB workers fast access to e-mail and contacts without having to wait to boot Windows.
But if money is so tight these days, can't cash-strapped SMBs just buy an add-on 3G card for their existing laptops? "They're doing that too, of course," Burch says, but adds that buying new brings other productivity benefits, including 802.11n, faster processors, and more RAM, "all for under $1,000. It makes a good calculation."
He may be right, if SMBs actually care about performance. And what about portability? There's more to true portability than just the ability to stay connected. Size and weight matter, too, as does battery life. That's why cheap netbooks are getting so much attention -- even though they're comparatively underpowered.
Don't Miss: Do Netbooks Really Have A Role At SMBs?
See more columns by Fredric Paul.
Fredric Paul is publisher/editor-in-chief of bMighty.com and SmallBizResource.com.
