Leasing Mac Equipment

[1066girl]

Does anyone have any experience of leasing Apple Mac suites of equipment for art, music or media studies?

 

I have recently taken over running an IT Services department in a school where investment in all hardware has been patchy.

 

The Mac estate is a mixture of 10-3 years old and, as a result is running various versions of software, some hardware is supported, some is not (and not likely to be due to age).

 

We are also suffering in that students have up to date iMacs at home, start projects and then bring them into school to finish, only to discover that the version of software at school is out of date!

 

I am potentially faced with asking for £65k to replace this kit (and this is without the licensing bill), and so am looking at alternatives that could help us spread the cost more.

 

However, I would never usually go down the leasing route for anything other than managed printing, so I am interested in hearing if anyone has had positive experiences with leasing of Mac based equipment and can recommend a supplier, can warn me off, or share their lessons learned of such an exercise?

 

Thanks very much.

[Sylv3r]

To be honest, you could lease the kit from any reseller. We've used Syscap Limited | Independent Finance Provider before in the past without any issues. Leasing is never really my preferred route, unless something needs changing and theres not sufficient budget to cover it. If your an academy theres rules in place regarding the length of time you can lease for and with regards to the types of leases available for you to use - you need to be looking at an operating lease, but any company you speak to will know all the rules etc put in place by the DfE.

[psydii]

It must be an operating lease. This is usually quite easily achieved for Mac hardware as its residual value (i.e. what the owners can sell it for at the end of the initial term of the lease) is high.

 

It is a good way to ensure that you always have up to date hardware. Generally you pay only 89.9% capital cost of the equipment over the term of the lease (usually 3 years, but with negotiation with DfE/EFA you might be able to set up 5 year op leases), before sending it back to the owner and refreshing. However with outright purchase you can sweat your assets out to 3-7 years, so taking that into account you usually end up paying 30% more over a 10 year period. (NOTE: that is only because you have to refresh every three to four years with a lease and thus pay every year... outright purchases you can take advantage of the assets full lifetime and thus only pay 100% costs every 4-7 years)

 

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/p/tips%20for%20successful%20leasing.pdf

 

Leasing Facilities - Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC)