EduGeek hardware rental network

[OverWorked]

At the conference, someone suggested that EduGeek have a central resource of hardware for rent. The MetaGeek Wi-Spy was used as an example.

 

How about a network of members willing to rent out hardware to each other in their locality, advertised through EduGeek? This would save EduGeek from having to invest in hardware for rental.

 

I do have a Wi-Spy if anyone's interested, and I'm looking for a cat6 cable tester.

[plexer]

The trouble is who would pay the schools or the techs out of their own pocket?

 

How we charge could be a mine field there.

 

What about insurance if something gets broken?

 

Ben

[OverWorked]

Well, the schools would pay. I wasn't suggesting that techs would use their own money.

 

Charges would be advertised. Schools could just raise cheques to each other.

 

Insurance is a more difficult problem. I don't know about that.

 

It's just a suggestion!

[SimpleSi]

someone suggested

- that was me.

 

Taking the MetaGeek product as an example - its £200.

 

One idea.

 

Edugeek buy it - lend it out to 1st person.

1st person gets it for a week (or 3 days) or until next person wants it.

 

They post it on (appropriately covered by postal insurance) to next person due to have it and so on.

 

Person/school pays edugeek £1/5/10 and pays for postal charge. Edugeek gets £50/250/£500 per year.

 

I think with that sort of deal we could end up buying a few of them!

 

At £1/5/10 plus post - some of us would pay that out of own pockets just to get use of such a device

 

(As long as edugeek can foot the capital cost)

 

Just one way!

 

regards

 

Simon

 

PS if it gets broken at a school - ce la vie - we'll just have to be careful with it !

[OverWorked]

PS if it gets broken at a school - ce la vie - we'll just have to be careful with it !

 

Or just don't let them have any more unless they pay for it! (Maybe not - not in the spirit of EduGeek).

 

I like your idea - I think it could work. I didn't know it was you. I was over the other side of the room.

 

My suggestion was to use the unused resources that a lot of us already in schools, rather than having EduGeek invest in a central resource. I've finished with my £200 WiSpy now, and our school is strapped for cash.

[SimpleSi]

Well - if your willing to risk it and see if the system is workable why not try it out and see what happens.

 

You send it to me - I'll send your school a cheque for £10 (I'd rather pay £5 but willing to go to top end as an experiment ) - I'll keep it for a week and then send it on to next person who wants it (with your approval of course) and pay the post cost (insured as much as possible).

 

If no-one else joins in - you won't have lost out and I'll had use of it for week (or even more - no point in sending it back to you as that'll just increase total postage charges to you )

 

Do you want to do it?

 

regards

Simon

 

PS As I said, if it gets broken I think there is no way I could convince my head(s) to buy a new one (or afford to myself) but maybe there could be an edugeek understanding pact/honour code to pay another £20 out of own pockets if we muck up! (if not - its the black ball!)

[SimpleSi]

Or maybe Edugeek will buy it from you for £100 (2nd hand price)

 

But still send it to me first - no point in forking out 2 sets of post charges

 

(And the manglement would just claim 1st dibs anyway and none of us would get a look in for for 6 months! )

 

regards

 

Simon

[OverWorked]

Simon,

 

I'll do it, but £10 a week still seems a bit small. How about £20 a fortnight?

 

If no one else wants it, you'll have it for longer anyway at no extra cost, or until I need it back.

[western]

can i ask what is wiispy

 

 

I know what it is now! I am also able to buy one for £106.00

Edited June 6, 2008 by western

[Dos_Box]

I have been thinking heavily about this and it does seem a good idea. Would it also be useful to have 'emergency loan' equipment including GB switches, servers and other essentials that can be rented as and when required for a set price per day?

[contink]

Having just bought one of these wispy things myself and also having considered leasing arrangements for printers I've had a bit more time to think this through probably but here's the model I'd go with.

 

Item worth £200 (wispy for example)

Charge: £75 for 2 weeks (£50 of which is a refundable deposit)

Delivery/Post by special delivery ONLY

 

Item has to go back to the originator before being passed on.

 

Trust is a wonderful thing but trust me it doesn't work when someone abuses it, and someone would.

[Dos_Box]

Having just bought one of these wispy things myself and also having considered leasing arrangements for printers I've had a bit more time to think this through probably but here's the model I'd go with.

 

Item worth £200 (wispy for example)

Charge: £75 for 2 weeks (£50 of which is a refundable deposit)

Delivery/Post by special delivery ONLY

 

Item has to go back to the originator before being passed on.

 

Trust is a wonderful thing but trust me it doesn't work when someone abuses it, and someone would.

 

Which is why we would only loan to schools and a thorough load agreement would be signed and in place.

[Michael]

At the conference, someone suggested that EduGeek have a central resource of hardware for rent. The MetaGeek Wi-Spy was used as an example.

 

Interesting proposal, but the problem with such a money generating solution is it'll take a considerable amount of time to break even, let alone make profit. You'll also need a lot of capital.

 

Equipment can also get damaged or lost in the post too. Some people might not even pay up. There's a lot of trust involved which adds a lot of complications to the idea.

[krisd32]

Its a wireless network spectrum analyser.

[western]

There is companies out there that loan anything IT/Network/Desktop/Projectors etc etc already. Edugeek does not need to do it!! These companies do this everyday and dont charge the earth.

[Dos_Box]

Money won't be a problem. You are a business and approach things from a completely different angle from how I would do them. EduGeek is here as more than a site we are slowly beginning to introduce some services for schools (no, not on site and technical). We would be very, very careful who would receive equipment.

[plexer]

There needs to be some sort of insurance cover or the schools signing a contract to say they will replace any hardware that gets broken.

 

The other issue is post, sure a wispy is quite small but there could be other bits of say structured cabling test kit that would be heavier.

 

Ben

[Dos_Box]

Shipping will not be an issue. I have some 'plans'.

[Michael]

Money won't be a problem. You are a business and approach things from a completely different angle from how I would do them. EduGeek is here as more than a site we are slowly beginning to introduce some services for schools (no, not on site and technical). We would be very, very careful who would receive equipment.

 

Yes, you're probably right. I guess I do look at things very much black and white and how viable an idea is. It's great Edugeek are looking to expand and offer additional services and solutions. There are lots of companies (as already mentioned) that do rent equipment, so they're directly competition.

My company don't rent computer equipment to any organisation. As far as I can see, your business proposal would be renting equipment short term to various establishments instead of longterm (such as a number of years), which I find interesting. Keep up the good work though

[OverWorked]

There is companies out there that loan anything IT/Network/Desktop/Projectors etc etc already. Edugeek does not need to do it!! These companies do this everyday and dont charge the earth.

 

Yes but this way, the schools get the money.

 

Regarding transport - the WiSpy is ideal for postage as it's light and comes in a tough CD case.

[SimpleSi]

1st of all a general comment.

 

My idea is based upon the concept of a club buying a piece of equipment that individual members couldn't afford, or need to have sole use of, and then the members get to use it.

 

(In early geekdom, before computers were invented, some of us old ones were radio hams and we had clubs )

 

Because edugeek is a big club, and we don't pay any subs, the club would need to recuperate the capital cost over time in order to finance the initial purchase.

 

But the club doesn't try to make an actual profit on the deal so the cost to the members is very low.

 

@comments about big money rental/large deposits/trust issues.

 

Scheme just won't work unless its a good deal for edugeekers - as far as trust goes - we could invent some sort of rules - only long standing members/only sent to school addresses/need to get 2 other quality edugeekers to vouch that you actually exist and are not a 12 year whoes been pretending to be a NM at a FE college for past 3 years

 

@overworked

I'll do it, but £10 a week still seems a bit small. How about £20 a fortnight?

 

The way I see it is - you have a device that cost you £200 - you don't need it anymore.

 

For a say £5 initial cost of posting it out (just made that figure up - I don't know how much it would be in reality) you start to get some money back.

 

In one year at £5/week you'll get back your £200

 

At £10/week you'll get back £500!

 

Unless it gets broken in which case lets say you only get 3 months out of it - thats £65 + £20 honour payment = £85. (or £150 at £10/week!)

 

BTW As a second had piece of kit, I always use 2nd hand selling price == 50% of new price as a rough guide (and if my mates at western are right - the new cost has dropped anyway )

 

Although you only get £5/10 - it costs me £10/15 (as I have to post it on again)

 

Since I'm very keen to borrow one and keen to get such a scheme in operation I was willing to go to £10 to get the ball rolling.

 

And with Dos_Box starting another ball rolling with his rental from a supplier concept, £5 might be over the top

 

Its up to you - I'd love to get something like this going (but don't want to step on DB shoes BTW!) but I can see you need to be on same wavelength(amateur radio coming out again) as comrade si here

 

As Mr Adams once said - Share and Enjoy

 

regards

Simon

[SimpleSi]

@overworked

 

Any further thoughts

 

regards

 

Simon

[enjay]

Coming to the party a bit late here, but a lending network sounds like a good idea.

 

It would take a lot of capital to get to the point that EduGeek owned a good amount of kit though - this service needs more than Dos_Bos buying a WiSpy in order to get going!

 

I'd be interested to see some "classroom peripherals" up for loan too, visualisers, TuffCams, graphics tablets, etc. (although many suppliers will lend these out for free if they think there's a sale in it...)

[SimpleSi]

I'd be interested to see some "classroom peripherals" up for loan too, visualisers, TuffCams, graphics tablets, etc.

 

Hey - this is a geeks place

 

Don't want any of that namby pampy teaching stuff

 

this service needs more than Dos_Bos buying a WiSpy in order to get going!

 

I believe that in fact this is exactly what is needed to get going (or Overworked to take the risk! - a nice device that some wouldn't be able to justify the capital cost of, but could do with borrowing for a short period.

 

Network testers/Time Domain Reflectometers are the other obvious choices

 

regards

 

Simon

[enjay]

Hey - this is a geeks place

 

Don't want any of that namby pampy teaching stuff

Not sure if that comment was serious or not, so I'll respond it it just in case it was. The way our budgets here work means we don't have a "mad march" or "silly season" where people buy random stuff just to use up their budget; instead, they apply to the SLT for funding for such things. This means they won't get visualisers, etc unless they can justify them, and won't be able to do that unless they've seen one. So, borrowing them one for a week or so would be great. Also, while we are geeks, let's not forget we are EduGeeks...

 

I believe that in fact this is exactly what is needed to get going

Let me clarify - while a single WiSpy would obviously get the ball rolling, it doesn't make much of a service; before it was really of any value, it would need significantly more kit to be available. I am not convinced that EduGeek has the funds to put together - and maintain as current - a sufficiently large library of equipment for this to really take off (unless all you want is a WiSpy, of course!).

 

Expensive network equipment would be a good starting point though, as that is often what we find hardest to justify as it would spend a lot of its time sitting on the shelf. A gig switch or two would be useful too, if we wanted to see what difference it would actually make, and thus decide whether or not to bother with the extra money.

 

Like I said, I like the idea in principal and definitely think it worth trying to flesh it out more to see if it can be made to fly.