IBM stepped up its drive to deliver blade servers to smaller businesses and branch offices yesterday with the unveiling of its new BladeCenter "S" management system for running small-scale blade environments without the associated investment in datacentre infrastructure.

IBM said the new system will be available towards the end of the year and has been designed to simplify the deployment and management of blade server infrastructure and the integration of essential business apps, such as antivirus, voice over IP and email, at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Joe Senior, STG integrated partner team executive at IBM, said the new " chassis" has been "right-sized" to sit on a desktop, can plug into a standard power outlet, and can manage storage and up to six blade servers at a time, allowing smaller firms to quickly and easily set up and manage their blade server environments without having to operate a full-blown datacentre.

"Bladecenter S takes blade technology and puts it into a cost effective form factor that is simple to use," he added.

The new system can also help firms reduce energy and IT management costs, according to IBM, allowing medium-sized companies to reduce by up to 80 percent the 25 to 45 servers they typically need to operate.

While being targeted primarily at SMBs, IBM insisted the product's wizard-based installation interface means it will also be well suited to larger firms with branch offices. "For businesses operating branch offices – such as retailers or financial institutions – IT administrators at headquarters can easily pre-configure hundreds of blade systems to operate in the same manner and ship them out the door knowing an office employee will be able to simply plug a system in and power it up," the company said.

Senior said that IBM was still working on the pricing for the new system, but added that he expected it to be aimed at the SMB market with prices starting from around £1,000.

Joe Clabby of analyst firm Clabby Associates welcomed the move. "It’s very promising," he said. "It’s easy to deploy: you just plug it into wherever you run your business. You don’t need a datacentre and it’s got tons of deployment assistance. Blades are easy to manage, virtualise and scale up. They’re excellent for power consumption and they have internal storage. IBM is not known as the company to go to for small and medium-sized businesses but it’s got a lot of partners that are going to drive this through."

James Staten, principal analyst at Forrester Research, added that the new system would appeal to medium-sized businesses rather than the smallest companies. "Nobody has really taken blades down to the SMES, although this… won’t appeal to companies with less than 20 servers," he said. "IBM has also left it open to partners to package with any software they want so they can appeal to verticals. You can put it under an arm and drop it into customers."