Small Business

Simplified Pricing for Vostro Laptops

Roel Canare, Vostro Notebook Pricing Manager — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

When we launched Vostro last year, we wanted to help simplify IT for businesses without extensive IT staffs. While simplifying the ownership and use of technology is a big part of our daily jobs on the Vostro team, part of simplifying IT is also about simplifying the purchase of Vostro systems.

As we’ve gotten to know more about what our Vostro customers want, we’ve found out that the people buying Vostro are some of our busiest customers and one thing they want is more time. We know that every minute they spend purchasing a new PC is a minute that can’t be spent on running their business. Time spent hunting for the best deal or comparing prices within the Dell website could be put to better use, and customers have told us that our pricing can sometimes be confusing or frustrating.

So this week, we launched new pricing for Vostro laptops in the US to address these issues. Here’s what you can expect from Vostro laptops:

Consistent pricing within each model. Interested in buying our new Vostro 1510? Go online and click on any of the Vostro 1510 “Customize It” links. Identically configured systems will be identically priced. This consistent pricing applies to each Vostro laptop model that we sell, so you can spend less time comparing prices within each model, and more time choosing the hardware that’s right for you.
Lower prices for the hardware that you want most. Instead of waiting for the right deal with the right hardware configuration, you can shop Vostro laptops and get great pricing every day. The upgrade from 1GB to 2GB of memory is only $25, DVD burners are $15, dual core processors are available for $25, and you can double your hard drive from 80GB to 160GB for only $30. No special deals or coupons are required to get these prices.

We hope that these changes will help speed the purchase process, provide terrific value, and let our Vostro customers get back to business. Let us know what you think, because we’re also looking to expand this pricing strategy to Vostro desktops.

Europe Vostro Keyboard Issue: What We're Doing

Bill Bivin, Laptop Liaison — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:44:00 GMT

Thanks to Flickr user Jake Gordon for alerting us to a problem with our Vostro 1310 and 1510 keyboard layout. He's the one that influenced Engadget and other blogs like Wired to write about the issue. There is no way to say it... we made a mistake and want to apologize to affected customers. I want to point out that this issue only affects some users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It should not be an issue for customers in any other region.

The pictures below will explain the issue a little more clearly. Bottom line, Jake was right on with his observations: we chose to use a larger left-Shift key than the one that commonly ships on industry-standard keyboard layouts. The backslash key was placed in its normal spot, immediately right of the Shift key. The increased width of the Shift key pushes the whole row of keys one position to the right. This is not a workable layout for touch typists.

Note: The original keyboard is on the left; the revised keyboard is on the right. Click on these images below for a larger version.

The new layout moves the backslash key to the far right of the second row from the bottom, which pushes the rest of the letter keys on that row to their traditional positions. While this location differs from some layouts, the larger left Shift key is beginning to appear on more systems there.

Here's what we're going to do: we plan to contact all affected customers, beginning today. All affected customers will receive an updated keyboard. They will have two options: we can send the keyboard and required BIOS update directly to them, or they can choose to have a field technician replace the keyboard onsite.

Swapping the keyboards is a pretty simple process. Take a look at the field service manual for the Vostro 1310 and the Vostro 1510. Soon, we'll publish a video that walks folks through the process. Update: Here's the video:

View Video
Format: flv
Duration: 5:38

Customers who don't want to wait can contact Dell directly via e-mail: emea_ts_pfr@dell.com

Please use the words Vostro Keyboard in the subject line. Here is the information we need from you in the e-mail:

Name
Daytime Phone Number
Order Number
Service Tag Number

Should Small Businesses Blog?

Kelly Curnow, Small Business Community Manager — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:00:00 GMT

I blogged last week about the Microsoft Office Live Vision to Venture event. In every location, local entrepreneurs were asked to participate in a panel discussion about their start up stories. Carli Kiene, Owner, inkedFingers Fotography was one of the panelists at the Austin event. Carli added a blog to her website to help stand out in the marketplace and develop relationships with her clients.
I caught up with Carli after the event for a Q&A on the benefits of blogging for small business owners:

Kelly: What are the main benefits of blogging for a small business owner?

Carli: Blogging allows me to connect with my clients on a very personal level. As a photographer, I am able to post daily my recent photographs for potential clients to view my updated work and existing clients get to know me as a friend, not just some girl taking their wedding photographs.

Kelly: How often do you blog?

Carli: I try to blog after every shoot, but when I have three shoots a weekend I can't post everyone's shoot. On average, I blog 2-3 times per week.

Kelly: How do you determine topics for blog content?

Carli: Because I am so passionate about photography, it is my goal to communicate this through every post. I want my clients (mostly brides, right now) to know that I LOVE working with them - they are fun to be around and I love photographing them. I have had potential clients tell me that they decided to book me after looking at my blog. In a photographer's case, if you're writing enough in your blog and not just posting pictures, your clients can get a feel for your great personality and that's enough to generate business.

Kelly: What blog software do you use? Is it hard to add it to your site? Is it expensive?

Carli: Blogspot hosts my blog. It's free, easy to use and quick to get started. I just inserted a link on my website to redirect people to my blog, hosted on blogspot. I have seen other business owners have an expensive site built and then incur additional costs by having a blog page added. At the same time, I have seen large, reputable companies use these free blogging sites like blogspot or typepad with no hesitation. They are fully customizable.

Kelly: What results have you seen from your blog?

Carli: Like I said, I've had clients still deciding if they would book me as their wedding photographer, look through my blog and that was their deciding factor. I had one bride who had booked me but I had not yet photographed her, and she did not know I had a blog. She said in one night she read through/viewed EVERY blog I had ever posted and it generated that much more excitement for her upcoming shot. This is the same girl after I posted her pictures on the blog, couldn't stop sending her own friends/family to take a peek and comment. That's creating enthusiastically satisfied customers, if you ask me. Will she refer her friends, bridesmaids and cousins to use me as their wedding photographer? She already has.

Kelly: Have you had to overcome any obstacles or difficulties while starting your blog?

Carli: My first couple of posts I wasn't really sure what to say. I didn't think I knew what my clients wanted to hear. But it really isn't that difficult I have learned. Clients of service-oriented businesses want to know what makes your company tick. They want to know why you are in business... do you love their job? What is your favorite coffee drink at Starbucks? If one of my bride's sees that after every bridal shoot I posted in the past on the blog I RAVE of the bride's beauty and comment on some crazy and fun occurrence during the shoot, it builds her own excitement for her bridal portraits.
Ultimately, blogging is about furthering your relationship with your clients. If they know you and you know them (or even if you are providing the perception that they are getting to know you) then they will be back. Period.

A special thanks to Carli for her time. If you want more information on starting a blog, check out John Jantsch’s article on 10 Essential Blogs Tools

Rugroden Drafting & Design: 2008 U.S. Small Business Excellence Award Finalist Profile

J. J. Davis, Sm and Med Business Communications — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:01:00 GMT

A little over 5 years ago, Ryan Rugroden recognized the need to better leverage information technology to assist in the designing and redesigning of customers’ dream homes. Taking it upon himself to keep up with the latest in home design software, Ryan knew he could serve customers in a way that truly differentiated him from his competition. With this realization, Ryan founded Rugroden Drafting & Design.

“We don’t live in a 2D world, so why settle for a 2D house plan,” said Ryan. “I always tell my customers, you wouldn’t spend thousands of dollars on a car just by looking at the manufacturer’s plans, so why wouldn’t you also test drive your new home?”

Rugroden Drafting & Design uses Softplan, architectural design software, to turn a customer’s requests, thoughts and ideas into a fully-rendered, 3D “virtual” home with detail right down to the interior design. Ryan and his customers can sit at his computer and take a virtual walk through their future home, provide and gather feedback and see instant modifications.

Because the average consumer finds traditional house plans to be extremely complex, Ryan found an unmet need in the custom home building market. “I have found over the past 16 years of designing peoples dream homes that 95 percent of them do not fully understand a floor plan.” With this insight, Ryan has capitalized on his tech-savvy skills to cater to customers in a unique way that helps him better meet their needs, compete and grow his business.

If you are in the construction industry and have questions for Ryan or are a consumer in the market for a home drafting and design firm specializing in 3-D design, please comment here or contact Ryan directly.

Dell/NFIB Named 10 Finalists for the U.S. Small Business Excellence Award

J. J. Davis, Sm and Med Business Communications — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

In January and again last month, Lionel blogged about the global expansion of the Dell Small Business Excellence Award. Reminiscent of how Dell got started 24 years ago (Dell celebrated its birthday yesterday), the global program is designed to recognize small businesses using technology in innovative ways to better serve their customers. We are now live in 10 of the 12 counties – Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France (launching May 13), Germany, Italy, Japan (launching May 19), Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States – and announced today the 10 finalists for the U.S. award. All national winners will be announced by Sept., with the global winner being named later in the fall.

As highlighted in the news release, this year’s finalists represent a broad range of industries and technology expertise ranging from construction, education and healthcare to the non-technical salon and spa industry.

To provide a glimpse into what these companies are doing to exceed their customers’ expectations, grow their businesses and gain national recognition, we’ll be posting profiles on each of them during the month of May.

The first is Rugroden Drafting and Design, a Onalaska, Wis.-based residential drafting and design service that creates construction drawings and incorporates the latest 3-D technology allowing customers to digitally walk through their virtual home.

Feel free to connect with any of these businesses if you are in need of services they provide or have questions about their technology solutions.

Thoughts from Microsoft Vision to Venture Event

Kelly Curnow, Small Business Community Manager — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT

What an inspiring day! I attended Microsoft Office Live Small Business Vision to Venture event in Austin last week and spent time with women entrepreneurs – some who have already launched their businesses and others who are thinking of starting one.

Susan Wilson Solovic, CEO and Chairman of SBTV.com kicked off the morning as keynote speaker detailing her Six Surefire Success Strategies. Here is a woman who started her first business venture at age 15 teaching young girls how to twirl a baton! My favorite take-away from the session was Be Confident: think big, bold and audacious and recognize that most small businesses fail or flounder because they aren’t thinking big enough.

Rich Sloan, CEO of StartupNation was up next and kept the crowd entertained as he provided his 8 Overlooked Secrets to Starting Up. One thing that really resonated with me was that life planning should come before business planning. Rich also told the audience to respect the “2X Factor” – expect everything to take twice as long and cost twice as much as you expect - at which point I noticed every head in the audience nodding in agreement.

John Jantsch, creator of Duct Tape Marketing rounded out the day with his 8 Step Marketing Plan. John emphasized the importance of knowing your talking logo. A talking logo allows you to communicate verbally the single greatest benefit of doing business with you. A talking logo is a short statement that quickly communicates your position and forces the listener to want to know more. John shared a great example – if you ask an architect - “what do you do for a living?”, which do you think is more powerful? “I’m a registered architect” or [Talking Logo] “I show contractors how to get paid faster.” The second statement focuses on addressing a key frustration that architects knows contractors (their target market) have.

I encourage you to sign up for the free on-demand webcast which will be available in late May – it’s a great way for you to experience Vision to Venture in case you weren’t able to attend in person.

Here are some resources that the speakers and other attendees recommended:

· Office Live Small Business Women’s Resource Center

· SBTV.com Women’s Channel

· Duct Tape Marketing Coach

· Score

· Count Me In

· National Federation of Independent Business

· WomenOwned.com

· Ladies Who Launch

· Center for Women’s Business Research

I did vlogs with the speakers so expect to see those in the upcoming weeks!

Windows Vista Downgrade Service & XP End of Life

Jenni Doane, Global SMB Software Manager — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:00:00 GMT

News is all over the internet these days on the impending end of Windows XP, which brings on the inevitable transition to Windows Vista, Microsoft’s newest OS. We’ve heard Small Businesses say they’re not ready to adopt Vista yet due to compatibility issues, uncertainty about Vista stability/ease of use, hardware requirements, etc. In fact, many of you have even signed the petition to give XP a stay of execution. We recognize that many businesses aren’t ready to make the transition yet and that supporting multiple OS’s can be demanding, especially for companies with limited IT resources. For those of you considering making the leap, I recommend this article from Brad Patten, a Small Business consultant and blogger. Brad lays out some important items to consider, the most important of which is verifying that any software or hardware that is key to running your business is Vista compatible. If compatibility is not an issue for you, then you may want to consider making the switch. The release of Service Pack 1 (SP1) has made Vista faster and more stable, and for laptop users, SP1 even offers improved battery life.

For those of you who still aren’t ready to make the leap, but think you might want to one day, Dell Small Business is now offering Vista Business and Vista Ultimate with Downgrade Service free on Latitude, Optiplex and Precision, and for a small fee on Vostro systems. With this service, we exercise your downgrade rights for you and factory-install XP Professional on your system while shipping you a CD for XP and a DVD for Vista. This way, you get the OS you’re comfortable with using now along with rights to upgrade to Vista when you’re ready, which offers investment protection for the future. When you’re ready to migrate to Vista, simply use the Vista DVD provided to run the install.

This service is not available on Vista Home Basic (to XP Home) or Vista Home Premium (to Media Center Edition) due to Microsoft rules around the program; Microsoft does not offer downgrades to anything other than XP Professional. We will continue to offer this service after June 18 for as long as Microsoft supports the program. June 18 is the last day that Dell will sell XP without going through Downgrade Service, and the last day for XP Home in any form at Dell. We cannot ship XP systems outside of the downgrade program after June 30. Check out www.dell.com/dellhasanswers for more details on both the end of XP and the Windows Vista Downgrade Service.

If you’re wondering how to select the Downgrade Service when you’re customizing your Dell system in the US, simply select the option titled Genuine Windows Vista Business Bonus or Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate Bonus. Click on the image below for a larger version:

Do you have questions on the Downgrade Service from Dell? How about comments on the end of XP and the transition to Vista? Feel free to comment below.

Small Business Tech Tip: Vista and Low-Battery Warning Adjustment

Kelly Curnow, Small Business Community Manager — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:31:15 GMT

Windows continuously monitors the power level of your battery and warns you when the battery power reaches low and critical levels. If you’re like me, there is never enough time to find an outlet before it is too late and the battery dies. Did you know that you can adjust when your low-battery light comes on, giving you more (or less) time to find a power outlet?

The quickest way to adjust the low-battery warning in Windows XP:

1. press the Windows key (the key that is typically in between your Ctrl key and Alt key) and the r key at the same time.
2. From there, type cmd and hit enter. Then type powercfg.cpl,1 and hit enter.
3. Level meters will pop up and you can adjust the settings from there.

In Vista, it's a little different:

1. Click Start, Settings, then select Power Options.
2. On the Select a power plan page, click Change plan settings under the selected plan.
3. On the Change settings for the plan page, click Change advanced power settings.
4. On the Advanced settings tab, expand Battery, expand Low battery level and Critical battery level, and then choose the percentage that you want for each level.
5. Click OK, and then click Save changes.

Small Business Tech Tip: Sluggish PC – Try Disk Defragmentation

Kelly Curnow, Small Business Community Manager — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Over time, your PC can start to slow down. One regular practice to help pick up its pace is to defragment your hard drive. To do so, go to the Start Menu; Click on Accessories (Accessories may be found in your Programs folder); click on submenu System Tools, and then the Disk Defragmenter application. Once the program has opened, you are offered menu options that allow you to select a particular disk, analyze (which will recommend whether or not you need to defragment) and defragment.

How often you defrag your computer depends on the size of your hard drive and the amount of time you use your computer. The typical 4 hour/day user should defrag four times a year but some say once a month is a good rule of thumb.

Small Business Tech Tip: Create an Email and Delay Sending It

Kelly Curnow, Small Business Community Manager — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:08:00 GMT

Our Vice President of Communications and Marketing, Andy Lark is full of good information (well, most of the time J) Below is a productivity tip he recently shared on his blog - The Daily Lark. I use this one and thought maybe you could benefit as well.

A great way to follow-up on issues and ideas in the future is to create an email and delay the sending of it. Unlike task reminders that appear in a long list, when this hits your Blackberry or Inbox you can move quickly to forward it.

In Microsoft Outlook, to enable delay sending of emails at specified time and date later than current time, or postponing the delivery date and time, use following steps:

1. In the Message window (where you type your email content), click the Options button. Alternatively, click on View -> Options.

2. In the Message Options dialog window, select and tick the “Do Not Deliver Before” check box, under the Delivery Options. Then choose the desired send date and time to deliver the email by using the calendar and time drop down list.

3. Click Close and then click OK

4. Send

If you have similar tips to share, leave a comment - I’m sure our readers would love to hear about them to help get back a few precious minutes in the day.