Business Owners Elect Their Favorite Tech

Question: My PCs are pooped. In tech terms, they are on life support. To help me choose something new, I need reliable information on which computers other small business owners like the most. Techie reviews by nerds don't mean much to me. For my money, business owners who use the stuff daily and have paid for it with hard-earned dollars, are the best critics. Does anyone run "elections" for favorite small biz PCs?

Answer: Bulls-eye! We admire your pluck when it comes to picking PCs. Indeed, the one source business owners have always trusted the most for advice on what to buy is other business owners. You'll find anecdotal advice from fellow entrepreneurs in chat rooms and small business sites at Yahoo!, AOL and OPEN (from American Express), as well as more specialized sites like SmallBizTechnology.com. Our favorite, though, is the annual Small Business Computing Excellence in Technology Awards, a kind of "PC Primary" where business owners themselves select the winners by popular vote.

In this open competition, top tech picks are made by thousands of small business visitors to the E-Commerce Guide, Webopedia and SmallBusinessComputing.com Web sites. Voters weight factors such as price, functionality and reliability, and pick the machines that work best for them.

In the major hardware categories most important to small business, Dell and HP were the clear leaders. That's no surprise, since both manufacturers work hard to deliver products pleasing to small business. In a bit of an upset, however, Apple products were finalists in both the desktop computer and notebook categories, showing that the Mac maker continues to make inroads into the small business market.

Here are the desktop PCs, laptops (or notebook PCs), printers and multifunction devices that small business owners consider the best for their needs.

• Desktop Computers: The top vote-getter among small business owners in this category is the Dell Dimension 4600C, which won by a landslide margin. This slim and stylish, but powerful PC is a scaled down version of the Dimension 4600. It sells in the $1,500 to $2,000 range, depending on how loaded it is. Other top finishers (in order) were the Apple PowerMac G5; HP Business Desktop d325 and the eMachines T2865. The latter, by the way, is becoming one of the most success new computer brands for small business. The eMachines philosophy is to build affordable PCs that deliver high performance and value. Read more about this upstart at: www.emachines.com.
  
  
• Notebook PCs: The notebook winner was again Dell, but only by a nose. Dell's Latitude D600 racked up 34 percent of the biz owner vote to barely top the popular line of Apple Powerbook G4s. The portable Macs come in three sizes, which has helped contribute to their popularity. Other top finishers were the IBM ThinkPad T40 and Sony Vaio TR1A.
  
  
• Desktop Printers: This is the category where HP devices generally rate high in small business popularity. And even though the cost of color laser printers has dropped dramatically, with many choices available, biz owners still chose a low-cost, high-reliability black and white laser printer - the HP LaserJet 1012 - as their favorite. This compact HP printer, new in 2003, grabbed nearly 60 percent of the small biz vote. At only $199 and a relatively speedy 15 pages per minute print speed, it serves as a real workhorse for many small offices. Other top finishers were the Xerox Phaser 6250, Lexmark E323 and Minolta QMS Magicolor 2300W.
  
  
• Multifunction Devices: HP also took top honors for multifunction devices that print, scan, photocopy and (sometimes) fax. The winner was the HP PSC 1210, a $149 marvel that is one of the smallest all-in-one devices yet. This machine does not include the fax function, and is geared to fairly light duty uses, but managed to win the hearts of small business owners who don't need anything more. In second place was the Cannon MultiPass MP730, and finishing third was the Lexmark X6170.

You'll find complete results covering 62 winners and finalists in 18 different categories on the small business channel at Internet.com.