• USA Today, Monday, May 4, 2009 11 AM

Dell and Hewlett-Packard are going head-to-head in an effort to offer lucrative management services, along with their hardware, to small and midsize businesses (SMBs). The model is similar to what IBM does for large companies, Byron Acohido reports.

Each company is offering special lines of PCs, backed by zero-percent financing, for SMBs. And each has launched Web sites and blogs with guidance on everything from how to get started to how to connect with clients. "It's a shift from a transactions model to a relationship model," says Stephen DeWitt, HP's senior vice president of its personal systems group.

The challenge will be how to meet the diverse needs of the companies, Acohido points out. "You just can't put a smorgasbord out there and hope they choose something," says Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite, "It's the Fortune 5 million, not the Fortune 500."

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