HP launched three servers for small and medium businesses at its Discover conference in Las Vegas Tuesday. All three are single-processor servers powered by the latest Haswell chips Intel announced one week ago.

HP designed the eighth-generation ProLiant MicroServer for use in an office with 10 or fewer employees. The ProLiant M310e Gen8 v2 is a tower server geared mainly for remote and branch offices, and the ProLiant DL320e Gen8 v2 is a rack server designed with smaller-than-usual depth to fit in as many kinds of spaces as possible.

The MicroServer Gen8 is quiet and simple to set up and manage, according to HP. McLeod Glass, director of product marketing for HP's server group, said the company designed it based on feedback from customers about a previous model.

“We've had a product in the market previously .. and we've done a lot of work with the community of users that have been using the microserver,” he said.

Combined with HP's new PS810-8G switch (designed specifically as a companion to the microserver and also announced at Discover) and Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Essentials, the server provides a shared-infrastructure solution for collaboration and access to employees of the business from anywhere and from any web-connected device.

The ProLiant DL320e Gen8 v2 rack server is about 15 inches deep, which means it can be installed in small spaces, running applications for small businesses, chain stores, factory automation, medical, transportation, telecom and military.

This is the first time HP has built a server of this size. “That's actually a new form factor for us,” Glass said.

The new ML310e server is basically a version of its predecessor upgraded with one of the new Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3 chips.

The new MicroServer's starting price is about US$500, and the ML310e (the tower) and the DL320e start at $870 and $900, respectively.