you will definitely need root access of some kind to install software, start daemons and cron jobs. Take a look at the installation guide for the software requirements, but the key will be RAM memory. You may start playing with 512 MB, but if your "few" people are actually using it, it will need more soon.
My notebook serves as dev-environment, has a Core Duo 1,8 MHz with 2 GB Ram. Running Notes, mysql, Alfresco, Eclipse, Firefox and IE, CIFS connection and the on&off word or excel is enough to start me wishing for more RAM from time to time.
Norgan