Leasing IT equipment - worth it or not
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@MattSpeller said:
There is an expectation that when you employ professionals, you give them professional gear and a professional environment. Maybe you can pull that off with used kit - I've never thought it worth the trouble.
I've never known anyone that this didn't work for and I'm used to supporting seven and eight figure professionals. And pulling it off with used kit was zero trouble, never had it even suggested as an issue.
What I can't figure out is where the expectation that IT can be pushed around to just burn budgets comes from. How is this zero effort for the world's biggest banks, hedge funds, even IBM yet small firms feel that their staff can demand things that make no sense for them?
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@Dashrender said:
employees who are making barely over minimum wage often don't care about their employers, nor are they aligned with the business. This isn't new.
You have minimum wage (or near to it) staff determining IT's purchasing policies? The extra cost of new over used is like an entire week of their salary!
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I paid around $800 each for current generation i5 processors with 4 GB RAM, desktop without monitors and laptops were roughly the same price.
So as a cost comparison, our leasing rounds to be comparable (it is tough as this isn't current) was around $190 for a similar machine. This was years ago so likely even cheaper now, more like $170 I would guess for a roughly comparable machine. We were at 4GB of RAM and SSDs for $190 several years ago.
That's more than 400% markup for machines without SSDs! Our old used machines would blow the doors off of those in user productivity.
With the SSD, that's true, but the processor would be a 1st or 2nd gen i3, not a current one, though I agree this probably does not matter for those working webpages and Outlook.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
In fact, my higher paid people (except sometimes the top) are the ones that complain the least because they do understand that this equipment is not theirs, and they only need to get their work done and don't need the latest greatest toys to do the job.
So where does the problem come from? Is it that the minimum wage workers are given way too much of a voice to management? Why are they allowed to determine how things are done and/or allowed to just complain about something so silly?
Why don't they complain that they need company BMWs? What is making the business willing to waste IT budget but not other budgets?
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@Dashrender said:
With the SSD, that's true, but the processor would be a 1st or 2nd gen i3, not a current one, though I agree this probably does not matter for those working webpages and Outlook.
I'd take a very old processor over having to work from spinning rust in a desktop. Yes, newer is better, but the CPU isn't the bottleneck normally. Another thing that I like about used - it is easier (and cheaper of course) to get systems tuned for usable performance rather than marketing figures.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Having read threads, especially on SW, where IT folks (who often need the least in terms of desktop power) demanding crazy setups like high end GPUs, 16GB of RAM, i7s with quad core and HT - things that would only make sense for a gaming rig in order to write PowerShell scripts.... I think that IT may be encouraging this behaviour in many cases by wanting to get awesome gear themselves and then, of course, staff who actually generate revenue will want it too.
In cases where you are struggling to get user buy in, are you able to point to machines that you are using yourself that are similar to what the users use? I assume part of the ease of me getting buy in is because users often got better machines than me. Hard to complain when they know that I'm using even older, less expensive gear than they are. Complaining feels a lot more foolish when they lack a use case for better gear.
I definitely brought that to bare in the last few years before our upgrades. I bought myself a quad core 8 GB RAM machine so I could run a few VMs locally for testing ( we didn't have a VM host at the time). i used that computer for 7 years until I replaced it with my current HP 800 G1 SFF i5 4 GB machine (I did give myself an SSD).
But before the upgrade, when people complained, I said.. hey, I'm working on a computer from 2007, just like you and I would show them the manufacture sticker... they normally quiteded right up and walked away.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Having read threads, especially on SW, where IT folks (who often need the least in terms of desktop power) demanding crazy setups like high end GPUs, 16GB of RAM, i7s with quad core and HT - things that would only make sense for a gaming rig in order to write PowerShell scripts.... I think that IT may be encouraging this behaviour in many cases by wanting to get awesome gear themselves and then, of course, staff who actually generate revenue will want it too.
In cases where you are struggling to get user buy in, are you able to point to machines that you are using yourself that are similar to what the users use? I assume part of the ease of me getting buy in is because users often got better machines than me. Hard to complain when they know that I'm using even older, less expensive gear than they are. Complaining feels a lot more foolish when they lack a use case for better gear.
I definitely brought that to bare in the last few years before our upgrades. I bought myself a quad core 8 GB RAM machine so I could run a few VMs locally for testing ( we didn't have a VM host at the time). i used that computer for 7 years until I replaced it with my current HP 800 G1 SFF i5 4 GB machine (I did give myself an SSD).
But before the upgrade, when people complained, I said.. hey, I'm working on a computer from 2007, just like you and I would show them the manufacture sticker... they normally quiteded right up and walked away.
I'm on a 2009 these days. It rocks. I think we generally got off lease machines that were just one year old.
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@scottalanmiller said:
What I can't figure out is where the expectation that IT can be pushed around to just burn budgets comes from. How is this zero effort for the world's biggest banks, hedge funds, even IBM yet small firms feel that their staff can demand things that make no sense for them?
Because the owners are closer to the employees, and therefore the employees make emotional pleas to the owners and the owners cave.
When you are a big corp, there are often several levels between the end user and the decision maker on what to buy, therefor all the whining in the world really doesn't matter.
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The performance difference between a HDD and an SSD are staggering at the desktop level. It really just boggles my mind.
We have two engineering machines that are ~5 years old now with no major issues other then basic Windows rot and long boot up times. I'm going to install SSDs in both of these machines with a fresh copy of Windows at the end of the summer and see how much a difference it makes.
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@Dashrender said:
But before the upgrade, when people complained, I said.. hey, I'm working on a computer from 2007, just like you and I would show them the manufacture sticker... they normally quiteded right up and walked away.
Do you feel that you have lost this leverage now?
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@Dashrender said:
Because the owners are closer to the employees, and therefore the employees make emotional pleas to the owners and the owners cave.
Was there ever a discussion with everyone where it was said "What you are asking for is purely for emotion and ego and will actually lower your ability to work on top of making you a $600 less valuable employee?" Did management understand the amount of productivity and financial loss associated with the decision?
I feel that there had to be some loss of communications. What owner throws away $600 per head over something that silly? The owner must be on drugs!! That's insane. And not $600 to get something better, but to get something worse! It's not like there is some soft value here to offset the spend.
I've found that owners tend to see the money going out as "their" money, which it is, unlike a big company where a manager might sign the check because it is the investor's money, not their own.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
But before the upgrade, when people complained, I said.. hey, I'm working on a computer from 2007, just like you and I would show them the manufacture sticker... they normally quiteded right up and walked away.
Do you feel that you have lost this leverage now?
Of course I have, for the moment, but my new computer is the same age as their new computer so when they start complaining in 3-5 years I'll do what I did before, and most likely they will just walk away.
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@Dashrender how do you handle user turnover now? When you had used machines, everyone got the same used machines. But now that you've set the expectation of "whine to the owner, guarantee yourself a new computer" how to you plan to handle new employees who do the same thing and the inability to redeploy the existing gear?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Why don't they complain that they need company BMWs? What is making the business willing to waste IT budget but not other budgets?
Sadly they do complain, granted it's not that they want BMWs, but other things... For example, one doc went out and bought himself a couple of new wireless mice (don't as me why) and was talking to me about them in front of medical staff... one of them started hounding him for a new mouse.. within a few days he just gave her one to shut her up.
As for the budget questions - I know this will blow your mind - but we don't deal in real budgets.
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@Dashrender said:
As for the budget questions - I know this will blow your mind - but we don't deal in real budgets.
Actually that is something that I believe strongly in - that budgets are bad. But one way or another, overspending in IT will probably come back to bite IT. Even if there is no budget, do you not fear that management will be like "but we just spend an extra $600 per person to shut them up, what is IT doing ?!?!"
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From looking at HP's data sheet, my guess is that fourth generation "i" processors would be available off lease already.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender how do you handle user turnover now? When you had used machines, everyone got the same used machines. But now that you've set the expectation of "whine to the owner, guarantee yourself a new computer" how to you plan to handle new employees who do the same thing and the inability to redeploy the existing gear?
I wouldn't say I did what you suggest. All of the gear I replaced was at least 7 years old and had Windows XP licenses - instead of buying new SSDs and more RAM and a new OS added with the possibility that the MB could die the next day, it doesn't/didn't make sense to bother upgrading the old machines. In hing sight, perhaps used machine that came with at least windows 7 and upgrading these cheap machines with small SSDs and some RAM might have been worth it.. And I'll definitely consider it next time in 7-10 years.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
As for the budget questions - I know this will blow your mind - but we don't deal in real budgets.
Actually that is something that I believe strongly in - that budgets are bad. But one way or another, overspending in IT will probably come back to bite IT. Even if there is no budget, do you not fear that management will be like "but we just spend an extra $600 per person to shut them up, what is IT doing ?!?!"
This assumes that they KNOW they spent $600 to shut them up... Heck honestly I didn't know two year old machines could be had so cheap! So they sure as heck don't.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
As for the budget questions - I know this will blow your mind - but we don't deal in real budgets.
Actually that is something that I believe strongly in - that budgets are bad. But one way or another, overspending in IT will probably come back to bite IT. Even if there is no budget, do you not fear that management will be like "but we just spend an extra $600 per person to shut them up, what is IT doing ?!?!"
This assumes that they KNOW they spent $600 to shut them up... Heck honestly I didn't know two year old machines could be had so cheap! So they sure as heck don't.
Management doesn't know the price difference? Is this because they were not told or because they were not presented options?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender how do you handle user turnover now? When you had used machines, everyone got the same used machines. But now that you've set the expectation of "whine to the owner, guarantee yourself a new computer" how to you plan to handle new employees who do the same thing and the inability to redeploy the existing gear?
I wouldn't say I did what you suggest. All of the gear I replaced was at least 7 years old and had Windows XP licenses - instead of buying new SSDs and more RAM and a new OS added with the possibility that the MB could die the next day, it doesn't/didn't make sense to bother upgrading the old machines. In hing sight, perhaps used machine that came with at least windows 7 and upgrading these cheap machines with small SSDs and some RAM might have been worth it.. And I'll definitely consider it next time in 7-10 years.
Putting money into seven year old machines often does not make sense, I agree. Especially if you are not leasing them and have the risk that they might just die on you and that is that. That's where the OP about leasing comes in. Seven year old machines on a forever lease with included support work great. I believe customers used to pay $5 per month for those. Super cheap when you think about that being a permanent warranty. They could upgrade back to modern machines anytime that they felt it was worth it. No penalties.
But yes, it is getting off lease machines, ones that are fast and still affordable, that is often what makes a lot of sense. The same kind of gear that server vendors sell as refurb in many cases. Lightly used, still modern.
Look at xByte and ServerMonkey, often they are selling same gen or last gen equipment at a fraction of the new price.
