IBM Think Center S50: The Ideal Corporate Small Form Factor

IBM, Compaq/HP, and Dell are generally regarded as the “big three” in Corporate Computing. While there are other players, and delivery may be by a third party like EDS or Decision One, the battle for the Corporate desktop and mobile computing needs is most often played by the “Big 3”. It is for this market that the IBM Think Center is designed, and IBM has generally done a brilliant job in creating this small computer for corporate needs.

IT Professionals have very different concerns than the home computer user or computer enthusiast. They are more concerned with the “cost of ownership” and the related “technology refresh” cycle. Most corporations lease their computer equipment, and they build into their lease/deployment plans when computer equipment will be “refreshed” (replaced). As the pace of innovation in computers accelerates, the refresh cycle has generally become shorter. Most corporations are now working on 2- to 3-year refresh cycles; although, the current recession has lengthened those times for many Corporations, who have been holding onto equipment for a longer time to cut costs.

Once the refresh cycle is plugged into the equation, “cost of ownership” becomes the next consideration. Computers break, they have to be maintained, they sometimes need to be upgraded to meet the requirements of the latest and greatest tools that the Corporation decides to roll-out to their desktop — and all of these cost money. For this reason, IT departments are very concerned about warranties and parts replacement by their computer vendor; and even with the cost of parts covered by warranty, generally on-site service is an additional contracted cost from either the computer vendor or a 3^rd party.

The larger the corporation, the more scrutiny these costs are likely to undergo, and the greater the desire to control the costs to an absolutely predictable level. A recent and growing trend is “user-replaceable” parts. Dell was the company that first excluded items like the mouse, keyboard and monitor from technician replacement. They would ship the replacement part to the end-user who would do the replacement themselves. That trend caught on and is growing with all the Corporate vendors, and as a result, the list of items considered “user-replaceable” has been growing — in a effort to cut cost-of-ownership.

Enter the IBM Think Center SFF. As you will see when we delve deeper into the guts of this little PC, IBM has engineered a computer whose main reason for being is to reduce cost of ownership to the absolute minimum. Having come from managing a large National Computer Service organization and a National Help Desk, I could almost hear the scripts that the Help Desk employees would use to guide the end-user through replacing their hard drive or adding memory. IBM certainly is listening to their clients, and the IBM Think Center carries “End-User Replaceable” to heights that a computer technician could only imagine.

System Specifications

System Specifications
	IBM Think Center S50	Soltek Qubic EQ3401M	Biostar iDEQ 200T	Shuttle SB65G2
Expansion Bays (5.25"/3.5"/Hidden)	1/1/1	2/1/1	1/1/1	1/1/1
Front USB Ports	2	2	2	2
Rear USB Ports	6	4	2	4
Internal USB Ports	N/A	2	4	2
Front Firewire Ports	None	1 Standard	1 Standard	1 Mini
Rear Firewire Ports	None	2 Standard	1 Standard	1 Standard
On-Board Parallel Port	Rear	Internal Header	Internal Header	Internal Header
On-Board Game Port	None	None	Internal Header	None
On-Board Serial Ports	2	2 Rear	2 — One Rear & One Internal Header	2 Rear
Front Audio Jacks	2 — Mini Mic & Headphone	2 — Mini Mic & Line-In	2 — Mini Mic & Heaphone	3 Mini
Rear Audio Jacks	None	3 Mini	3 Mini	3 Mini
SPDIF	None	One — Front Optical Out	Two: Rear Optical Out & Front Optical In	Two: Rear Optical SPDIF In & Out
Number of Fans (including CPU/chipset)	2	2	2	1
Power Supply	200W	250W Enhance	200W Enhance	220W Enhance