Microsoft rolls out affordable products for small businesses

If fastfood chains have their “value meal” products, Microsoft Philippines recently rolled out its own version of “value solution” products that intend to meet the financial capacity of most small and startup companies, especially in the southern Philippine market.

Microsoft Philippines marketing manager George Parilla said the company has developed the "Windows Essential Business Server 2008" designed for companies employing not more than 75 people.

"This is a combination of seven solutions packed in one product. It combines management, messaging, and security software into one integrated infrastructure solution that can dramatically reduce IT complexity and improve business efficiency," Parilla said.

Parilla said of the overall operations of the company, 70 percent of the total revenues come from the small business servers from the Southern Philippine market.

Thus, Microsoft is pushing its "value-solution" product to provide technology advantage to the smaller and startup companies that are cost-conscious, but have potential for growth.

Now that technology has become an important partner for businesses, Parilla said Microsoft had been developing products that would fit every market segment.

This value-solution product is specifically designed for companies with limited budget for technology, he said.

"We need to understand the market. We don't want to offer generic product for everybody," Parilla said.

Already, Microsoft had introduced its version of "sachet" technology solution, through the Home and Student full package product.

Through this "sachet" package, Microsoft introduced 40 percent price reduction of its Microsoft Office 2007 for Home and Student, in its effort to provide affordable software products to the consumer based market.

According to Parilla, technology solutions should be made available to the mainstream market, not only for those big companies, but down to the grass roots as well.

In Visayas and Mindanao, Parilla said there are still a lot of start-up and small companies that are desperately needing quality technology solutions.

The new Windows Essential Business Server 2008 for smaller companies is only pegged at P50,000.

Parilla said if an organization is pursuing cost-cutting measures, adopting this kind of technology should be pursued, "technology adoption can reduce cost, manpower utilization, and increase productivity."