Personal computers are a critical resource for most small businesses and can severely impact their ability to satisfy customers and earn revenue on any day of the week. However, most sm

May 11, 2012

4 Min Read
Lenovo Takes the Worry out of SMB Computer Management

By Lenovo Guest Blog 2

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Personal computers are a critical resource for most small businesses and can severely impact their ability to satisfy customers and earn revenue on any day of the week. However, most small-business owners do not actively manage their personal computers because they are already very busy focusing on their business day-to-day operation, and it is time-consuming to actively manage their PCs. That is, until now.

With the announcement of the E430 and E530 notebook computers, Lenovo introduces two new PC management tools, Lenovo Solutions Center (LSC) and Lenovo Solutions for Small Business (LSSB) powered by Intel’s Small Business Advantage (SBA), which significantly improves small-business owners’ ability to manage their PCs.

Conveniently integrated into a common SimpleTap 2.0 interface, LSC and LSSB provide small-business owners a virtual help desk that monitors the PC and provides tips and alerts. With these tools, small-business owners will be able to focus on their business, not their PCs, but still have the peace of mind that their computer will be ready to work. Although the advantages of these tools apply to all types of users, they are ideal tools for small-business owners that self-maintain their computers.

Lenovo Solutions Center is focused on keeping the PC running at peak performance to improve the user and business experience. LSC assesses software and hardware, diagnoses issues and provides tips to fix potential problems before they impact the business. LSC also can be used to schedule backups, create recovery media, update software and manage virus protection, firewall and passwords. If a small-business owner does find a problem, LSC can be used to easily identify the computer machine type, model and serial numbers, provide warranty and configuration updates history information and access to Lenovo online support. With these useful maintenance features, LSC helps small-business owners get the most out of their PC experience.

Lenovo Solutions for Small Business, powered by Intel’s Small Business Advantage, is focused on enhancing the PC security and user productivity. Most computer users understand the importance of protecting their PC with a virus protection software program. However, do they know if it is working correctly? Has it been disabled or cloned and replaced by a Trojan virus? LSSB Software Monitor feature will detect, at a hardware level, the status of the computer’s virus protection program and, if necessary, send the owner’s smartphone an alert. With the USB Blocker feature, the small-business owner can decide which USB devices can be used with the PC, protecting the owner’s valuable data and ensuring a virus or some other undesirable program, data or pictures are not loaded on the computer using a USB key.

With the After-Hour Maintenance feature, the business owner can schedule a convenient time when the computer will turn on, perform maintenance procedures including updating the operating systems and device drivers, run virus scans, create backups and perform other maintenance procedures and then shut down. These activities no longer will impact the productivity of the user or business. Using Energy Saver, the business owner can schedule a time when the PC will turn off and on, making the business a little greener, saving a little money, and ensuring the PC is ready to work when the business opens. With these features, LSSB, powered by Intel SBA, ensures the small-business PC is secure and ready to use.

Finally, Lenovo ties the LSC and LSSB messaging and features into a common SimpleTap 2.0 tool, which combines the simplicity of a smartphone and the power of a PC. SimpleTap 2.0 consists of a group of customized icons that launches applications by clicking on the icon using a trackpoint, touchpad or mouse. With LSC and LSSB, small-business owners can invest a limited amount of time setting up these tools, focus more time on their business and have the peace of mind that their Lenovo computers are being self-managed.

For additional information please visit the Lenovo Partner Network.

Jeffrey Farringer is worldwide product marketing segment manager, ThinkPad Edge Business Unit at Lenovo. Monthly guest blogs such as this are part of The VAR Guy’s annual platinum sponsorship. Read all of Lenovo’s guest blogs here.

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