Price goes far beyond hardware, however. Server software optimized for small businesses can equal or exceed hardware costs. So while it may be argued that Novell and Microsoft offer more features, the server appliances include all the really necessary software bundled with essentially free hardware. Or, if you prefer, they sell the hardware with free software. Third, high power still means high complexity.
Technical expertise gravitates toward high dollars and away from small companies.
Even large companies with adequate technical support face a personnel crunch servicing remote offices. The average enterprise customer supports nearly 100 remote offices, making adequate physical technical support almost impossible. Hardware and software bundling in server appliances help small businesses get needed services conveniently and inexpensively. Each server appliance reviewed here used some version of Linux, reducing the software cost considerably, although each provided its own administration software at some development cost. Configuring the software services needed, such as Web, e-mail and FTP servers, takes more Linux experience.