Lenovo Builds Notebooks for SMBs

Small business owners are constantly on the go and always looking for the chance to squeeze in a few more hours of work. That makes them perfect candidates for a notebook computer.

In a move designed to zero in on the SMB-notebook love connection, Lenovo today introduced the SL ThinkPad line, which the company says was designed specifically for smaller companies. The SL300, SL400 and SL500 are designed to accommodate a mobile work style, add a touch of multimedia sizzle and sport stylish good looks.

According to Charles Sune, worldwide segment manager for ThinkPad SL Series, the new small business line delivers high-quality, affordable prices and reliable service and support. Sune said SMBs are the fastest-growing segment of the notebook market.

To reinforce notebooks' big appeal to small business, Sune points to IDC data that predicts that in 2009 31 percent of all notebook sales will be made to small businesses. While that's impressive, it doesn't stop there. Sune said SMBs are also "the fastest growth area" for notebook sales, out-pacing sales to large enterprises.

"That got our attention, and we decided to more directly address this segment." In the U.S., IDC predicts that the number of notebooks used by SMBs will to grow from 7.5 million notebook PCs in 2007 to 11.6 million in 2011.

You Want That to Go?

You could argue that M in SMB stands for "mobile." Sune said Lenovo designed the notebooks to meet the way small businesses work, which includes in the office, at home or maybe at a coffee shop. To address on-the-go businesses, the SL notebooks offer several flavors of wireless connectivity.

In addition to supporting Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and WiMax, the SL notebooks also feature an option ($25, according to Sune) for a built-in connector for high-speed mobile broadband. He said Lenovo is partnering with AT&T to offer optimized mobile broadband service.

While AT&T's reputation took a bit of public relation hit due to its notoriously slow Internet access speed on the iPhone, Sune pointed out the SL notebooks support AT&T's HSPA/GSM network, not the much-maligned Edge network. Lenovo didn't have a lot of options for partners in this country. Sune said At&T is only provider to offer GSM in the U.S. He added that they will have multiple mobile broadband partners worldwide.

While the SL notebooks are built to be business-savvy, they also pack a multimedia punch and the company seeks style points for the line's attractive looks. "Buyers in the 1-99 employees category are similar to pure consumers," Sune said. "They are interested in an eye-catching design." To meet that interest, the ThinkPad SL series features a glossy-black top cover, which is a first for the ThinkPad line, he said.

On the multimedia side, the SL line comes with speakers, microphones and an optional Web cam that provides Internet voice and video conferencing. If you want to watch movies or other video content in high-definition, the SL lines supports HDMI/VGA. To help you create multimedia content, the SL line also includes Roxio Creator for Small Business.

Lenovo says its ThinkPad SL line is designed with small (and mobile) businesses in mind.

The SL notebooks offer up to 320GB hard drives to help accommodate video, photos and music. It also has a 1394 port to allow you to connect external storage devices.

It's no secret that small businesses often have lean IT resources. In an attempt to provide a layer of data protection and security, Lenovo also announced ThinkPlus Secure Business. Among other services, it offers online data backup. You get 5GB of backup space at no charge or can expand to 50GB for $149 (for a year) or $439 for three years.

What's It Gonna Cost?

While features are, of course, important, price is paramount, according to Sune, who described small businesses as "the most price sensitive segment of the notebook market." The SL line is "cost-optimized first, but we had to be careful about tradeoffs."

For example, Sune said, the SL lines does not incorporate a proprietary docking station (which in effect turns your notebook into a desktop PC). However, small businesses can get some of that functionality through port replicators.

"SMBs are [also] willing — to some extent — to trade weight and size for a lower price," Sune said. The ThinkPad SL400 and SL500 notebooks, which feature 14-inch and 15-inch wide screens, respectively are available immediately for a base price of $799. The 13-inch screen SL300 will available in August for $899. The SL300, SL400 and SL500 weigh in 4.6 pounds, 5.5 pounds and 6.4 pounds, respectively.

The SL notebooks incorporate Lenovo's Active Protection System, which is designed to sense sudden movement. It then locks the hard drive heads to prevent damage to drive.

All three SL notebooks can accommodate various Intel Core 2 Duo processors and will soon be available with Intel Centrino 2 processor (which were released this week).

Stolen Bank Data Dirt Cheap Online

LONDON -- Prices charged by cybercriminals selling hacked bank and credit card details have fallen sharply as the volume of data on offer has soared, forcing them to look elsewhere to boost profit margins, a new report says.

Researchers for Finjan, a Web security firm, said the high volumes traded had led to bank and credit card information becoming "commoditized" -- account details with PIN codes that once fetched $100 or more each might now go for $10 or $20.

In its latest quarterly survey of Web trends, the California-based company said cybercrime had evolved into "a major shadow economy ruled by business rules and logic that closely mimics the legitimate business world."

Finjan's Israel-based chief technology officer, Yuval Ben-Itzhak, said in a telephone interview that new types of stolen data were now commanding a premium, such as patient health care information that can be used for insurance fraud or to illicitly acquire and sell medicines.

Other premium data includes business information, company personnel files and intercepted commercial emails.

Mafia Structure

The Finjan report, partly based on contacts the company established with five groups trading online in stolen data, described a Mafia-type cybercrime hierarchy in which bosses operate as business entrepreneurs and typically leave the actual online attacks to underlings.

An "underboss," or second-in-command, provides the Trojan infiltration software for launching attacks. The workforce that carries these out is paid according to the rate of infections achieved and the country of origin of the infected computers.

"Resellers" then trade the hacked financial data in the same way that a criminal "fence" disposes of stolen goods.

In online exchanges with resellers, Finjan researchers were offered a menu of stolen data, with platinum, gold and corporate card details commanding the highest prices.

Sellers promised the data was "fresh," and one even offered a 48-hour guarantee to supply new details if those originally bought were rejected by payment systems as stolen cards.

"It's like in the regular business world -- when you buy a good and it doesn't work, you go back and you want to replace it," Ben-Itzhak said.

"It indicates a competitive environment...They need to build reputation, they want to show they're providing high quality data for your money so you can go back and buy from them rather than go to the other groups."

Ben-Itzhak predicted banks, which until now have shouldered the burden of compensating people whose data are hacked, would seek to put some of the onus for security on the customer.

"So far the banks are not mandating the end user to have some sort of security on their desktop," he said. "They're taking the risk, better to say they're paying the risk, when your account has been compromised."

"However, what we noticed recently is the volume increased significantly and the banks are starting to ask the question: Did you install something or do you have something running on your desktop. ... The banks will start to ask questions of the end users and put some responsibility at least on them."

New Launch for AOL in Personal Finance

Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL will launch a personal finance site on Tuesday, adding to a roster of new properties that do not bear its name.

The new site, called WalletPop.com, is a spin-off of AOL's Money & Finance channel and will focus on consumer and personal finance. AOL Money & Finance will continue to offer business and investing news and tools.

The launch of another site not bearing the AOL brand is part of a plan to create new online businesses courting younger audiences unfamiliar with a company whose heyday ended with the popularity of high-speed Internet access.

TMZ.com, a celebrity entertainment site created by AOL and a unit of Warner Bros., added 35 percent more users in May, now attracting about 9.2 million visitors monthly, according to comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR). Asylum, which the company said is now the top men's site, attracted 2.7 million unique visitors in May.

Walletpop offers "a comprehensive, accessible, and interactive Web site focused exclusively on the money matters of real people, such as debt management, finding the best deals, saving, retirement, insurance, real estate, banking, taxes and more," Marty Moe, senior vice president for AOL’s Money & Finance division, said in a statement.

Walletpop's launch follows on the heels of the July launch of BigDownload.com, a site targeting PC gamers.

A $3B Investment in Superfast Broadband for BT

Britain's telecom company BT (NYSE: BT) plans to invest 1.5 billion pounds ($3 billion) to roll out superfast broadband to up to 10 million U.K. homes by 2012, enabling services such as videoconferencing and interactive gaming.

The group said it would suspend its share buyback program from July 31, given the strategic priority of the broadband investment, but remains committed to its dividend.

It will also make the fiber network available to other Internet service providers (ISPs), such as Carphone Warehouse and BSkyB, through wholesale to ensure the broadband market remains competitive.

Those ISPs, which have put their copper lines into BT's networks in recent years to give them more control over pricing, could also decide to repeat this process with fiber.

The program is Britain's largest ever investment in superfast broadband, which will deliver speeds of up to 100 megabytes per second.

The fiber will be linked to the street cabinet -- and in some cases, such as the Olympic village for the 2012 Games -- directly to the premises.

Homes linked to a fiber-to-the-cabinet network will receive initial speeds of up to 40 megabytes (MB), but BT expects this to increase to 60MB with new technologies. Those on a fiber-to-the-premises network will see speeds of up to 100MB.

"Broadband has boosted the U.K. economy and is now an essential part of our customers' lives," Chief Executive Ian Livingston said in a statement.

"We now want to make a step change in broadband provision, which will offer faster speeds than ever before,” Livingston said. “This is a bold step by BT and we need others to be just as bold.”

"We want to work with local and regional bodies to decide where and when we should focus the deployment,” he added. “Our aim is that urban and rural areas alike will benefit from our investment.”

BT noted a supportive and enduring environment was "essential" for the investment, which adds about 1 billion pounds to its existing expenditure plans for fiber deployment, to take place.

It expects the initial investment will result in around 100 million pounds of incremental capital expenditure in each of the 2008/09 and 2009/10 financial years, with the remaining incremental spend of 800 million pounds being spread over the subsequent three years.

Analysts welcomed the announcement, which they said had been mostly expected, although shares in BT were down 2.3 percent at 197 pence at 0815 GMT, in an overall lower market.

"This phased rollout is very much in line with our expectations, and provides clarity on capex needs whilst reaffirming dividend guidance," analysts at Investec said in a note to clients.

"With much of the spend back-end weighted we see little change to near-term EPS forecasts and cash flows."

Analysts at Morgan Stanley said the investment would also help protect BT from competition from cable group Virgin Media (NASDAQ: VMED), which is rolling out faster broadband speeds.