Lease Or Purchase?
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Our VP of Finance just stopped by and asked me what I knew about leasing desktops and workstations. Our current model is replace every five years or when the system dies. Most of our systems are still custom built boxes that have been running strong since they were put in. I am slowly replacing those with Dell PCs and Microsoft Surface Pro tablets (for Sales)
So what do you guys think? Do you lease? Have you looked at it? What were your pros and cos?
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We are on the opposite side of the fence, we've provided leases for over a decade now. Leasing has worked out great for our clients. But they don't want to do five years and replace, they do the opposite, they want to get used and keep for a very long time. The leasing helps them to have predictable pricing while not using the latest gear. But the predictability of the cost is a big benefit.
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Leasing is freaking awesome if you get it setup right from the start.
There are tax advantages as well (in Canada, YMMV)
I like the last setup I had - vendor sold it to the external leasing company, who leased it to us with $1 buyouts. We would turn over the gear every 3 years, 1/3 each year (servers desktops laptops, networking, you name it). $1 buyout let us sell on the decent used gear to employees for stupid cheap (making them happy) and everyone always knew they had fresh kit to use - no one ended up with a junker.
Another bonus is you keep capex outflow low. You don't need to go tell finance that you need a cheque for $30k, it's all nice and even equal payments. This makes finance very happy.
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@scottalanmiller said:
We are on the opposite side of the fence, we've provided leases for over a decade now. Leasing has worked out great for our clients. But they don't want to do five years and replace, they do the opposite, they want to get used and keep for a very long time. The leasing helps them to have predictable pricing while not using the latest gear. But the predictability of the cost is a big benefit.
So what do you guys end up leasing, just the hardware and OS or is the software included. I wouldn't mind used from an IT perspective, except for our engineering machines our basic office workers and plant machines are just for data collection and email... with very little resource requirements.
I would also try and talk my VPoF into looking at Office 365 E3 as an option to do subscription based licensing for Office.
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@coliver said:
I would also try and talk my VPoF into looking at Office 365 E3 as an option to do subscription based licensing for Office.
Unless you have more than 300 employees, you will not likely need to pay for E3. You can save $7.50 by using Office 365 Business Premium.
http://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plans -
@JaredBusch said:
@coliver said:
I would also try and talk my VPoF into looking at Office 365 E3 as an option to do subscription based licensing for Office.
Unless you have more than 300 employees, you will not likely need to pay for E3. You can save $7.50 by using Office 365 Business Premium.
http://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plansCan I mix and match with that? I have a dozen or so users who don't need the Office suite or any of the other addons.
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@coliver said:
Can I mix and match with that? I have a dozen or so users who don't need the Office suite or any of the other addons.
Yes, additionally, you can mix in some Exchange Online Plan 1 for those system accounts that really need login and not shared mailbox or distribution groups.
You can even migrate to the Enterprise plans now, supposedly. Much better than a couple years ago.
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@JaredBusch said:
@coliver said:
Can I mix and match with that? I have a dozen or so users who don't need the Office suite or any of the other addons.
Yes, additionally, you can mix in some Exchange Online Plan 1 for those system accounts that really need login and not shared mailbox or distribution groups.
You can even migrate to the Enterprise plans now, supposedly. Much better than a couple years ago.
That is a much more enticing option. We won't be growing to 300 people in the short term, so I will have to readdress this.
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The new migration options with O365 are really great. We have a couple clients that have a mix of different levels.
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@coliver said:
@JaredBusch said:
@coliver said:
Can I mix and match with that? I have a dozen or so users who don't need the Office suite or any of the other addons.
Yes, additionally, you can mix in some Exchange Online Plan 1 for those system accounts that really need login and not shared mailbox or distribution groups.
You can even migrate to the Enterprise plans now, supposedly. Much better than a couple years ago.
That is a much more enticing option. We won't be growing to 300 people in the short term, so I will have to readdress this.
My Helpdesk email account is Exchange Online Plan 1.
My part timers are on E1.
The full timers are on E3 via our Partner entitlement.
Next time I need to add an E1 I will add the Business Essentials instead and see if it lets me mix this. -
@JaredBusch That would be good to hear one way or the other. Last time I looked at this you couldn't mix and match Enterprise and the Business licenses.
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@coliver said:
@JaredBusch That would be good to hear one way or the other. Last time I looked at this you couldn't mix and match Enterprise and the Business licenses.
It was like that when I added the E1 license last year. That was before the new plans though.
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There have been lots of changes for the good in the last 6 months or so with O365.
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@Minion-Queen said:
There have been lots of changes for the good in the last 6 months or so with O365.
Most definitely.
