mroberton Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 First point to make about i desk they do not dictate to their customers as some companies do, before they install they listen to what you want, you get to design how you want your room to look, what specs you want. Second point Steve Morgan and the team check in with you every step of the way, and the after sales care is legendary, even two years after installing the i desk solution I know a call to Steve will result in action regardless of the problem. Thirdly ICT is no longer just about how well a machine functions but what people perceive. We have one suite of dells which is regularly vandalized by pupils pulling cables, mice etc, the atmosphere in the suite does not promote the best learning environment. In our i desk suites the atmosphere is calm, the pupils are respectful, and they engage in their learning. This view is supported by all our staff, and over the last two years they have gained in confidence in using IT. Fourthly, and I know people want to know how about cost, i desk is a long term investment, in the end it will save money because you will be replacing pc's over time but upgrading components which is a money saver, and as i started by saying i desk listen to what their customers want so it is difficult to give quotes as we all have different needs. I am sitting in my suite thinking hard why I would encourage people to buy i desk without sounding like a clone of Steve Morgan or a paid employee... all I can say is that I looked at all the solutions on offer, from experience I have seen desks put in and within two weeks they are falling apart or people do not put the mice away properly thus snapping the cables... i desk was not like that. With other solutions you state what you want and they give you reasons why it can be achieved... i desk is not like that i drew for i desk what i wanted and they gave it to me... and to emphasize in the long term it will pay for itself. Anybody who is in the Hampshire/ surrey area are more than welcome to visit... Oak Farm in Farnborough. Sorry if I have gone on for a bit but i find it rare to find a company that I have no issues or gripes about.
localzuk Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 All I desks are made with a 26mm moisture resistant MDF with a melomime finish with edging strip. This is machined on CNC machines. The legs and chassis are powder coated. Add that to the fact that they come and install the desks think of the time saving alone on producing it. Also I have not seen an "inhouse solution" that is of the grade you are proposing. Add in the maintenance of a £500,000 CNC machine and its milling bits I can see that the solution is very reasonable. Err... So your explanation for ridiculously high per seat pricing is simply that the company have decided that they want to make their money back on their investment at high speed rather than a longer term recovery? ie. rip schools off simply because they don't have a suitable business plan? Sorry but that doesn't fly to me. As for the post about cramming everything into a small case. There is more space inside one of these cases than in a laptop or for example or a HP DC7700 DC7900. We have had no problems with ours and I did speak to other people who have had Idesk installs done, one of which had done an in house upgrade. The components inside are standard PC parts. Nothing bespoke about them except the case that it sits in. The furniture stays the same. Last I checked, HP spent millions of pounds on research each year, developing and testing reliable systems. A small company simply cannot do that. A laptop has very specific methods of cooling, and a shorter life expectancy than a desktop. Add in the fact that laptops mostly use mobile class technology (ie GPU's designed for laptops, chipsets designed for laptops, processors designed for laptops), and those that don't are usually huge. Do iDesk stress test their new PC's untill they die? etc... Specification wise Intel Dual Core e5200 2x 2.5 2M 800MHz 45nm Hard Drive 160GB SATA2 Memory 2GB DDR 2 Ram 800Mhz Optical Drive - CD-Writer / DVD Reader "Storage Card Reader 3.5"" Internal" The e5200 is a slow chip compared to most now. ie. low spec. It is part of the old 'Penitum Processor for Desktops' range, which is a secondary 'cheap' range. It isn't as bad as a Celeron, but is by far not a good processor compared to a Core2Duo.
Martin Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 All I desks are made with a 26mm moisture resistant MDF with a melomime finish with edging strip. This is machined on CNC machines. The legs and chassis are powder coated. Add that to the fact that they come and install the desks think of the time saving alone on producing it. Also I have not seen an "inhouse solution" that is of the grade you are proposing. Add in the maintenance of a £500,000 CNC machine and its milling bits I can see that the solution is very reasonable. Gotta agree with you there! I have been round the i-desk factory (actually, the old one in Camberley), and it is the investment in the production equipment that means that they will always be miles better then an in-house job using a band-saw and some kitchen worktop The guys are also very proud of what they do, which reflects on the quality of product and service that they provide! mb
vivalagoobs Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 (edited) Err... So your explanation for ridiculously high per seat pricing is simply that the company have decided that they want to make their money back on their investment at high speed rather than a longer term recovery? ie. rip schools off simply because they don't have a suitable business plan? Sorry but that doesn't fly to me. Last I checked, HP spent millions of pounds on research each year, developing and testing reliable systems. A small company simply cannot do that. A laptop has very specific methods of cooling, and a shorter life expectancy than a desktop. Add in the fact that laptops mostly use mobile class technology (ie GPU's designed for laptops, chipsets designed for laptops, processors designed for laptops), and those that don't are usually huge. Do iDesk stress test their new PC's untill they die? etc... The e5200 is a slow chip compared to most now. ie. low spec. It is part of the old 'Penitum Processor for Desktops' range, which is a secondary 'cheap' range. It isn't as bad as a Celeron, but is by far not a good processor compared to a Core2Duo. First of all, we decided not to upgrade this processor in this installation due to the applications in this room whilst also working to a budget. (Its not always about having the best, its about having something that works and works well.) I.e. You wouldn't replace your car if works for something that is better for the sake of it? I hardly class it as ridcoulsy high prices, coming from an ex bespoke furniture background, a £1000 per desk is nothing when it includes a PC. It does the job and will last a long time, the saying goes " You get what you pay for." The reason for having a CNC cutter is to make life easier and make producing each desk more efficent. They are currently developing new products whilst improving the exisiting ones.For e.g. Devloping a chassis for Quad core/i7 installations. We asked about this for our first installation but Idesk, were not happy about providing us with an untried soloution. Idesk - Don't knock it, till youv'e tried it Idesk do stress test their products, before sending them out for installation. Edited October 21, 2009 by vivalagoobs
localzuk Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 First of all, we decided not to upgrade this processor in this installation due to the applications in this room whilst also working to a budget. (Its not always about having the best, its about having something that works and works well.) I.e. You wouldn't replace your car if works for something that is better for the sake of it? Well, we do replace computers for the sake of it... Its called our rolling replacement program. ie. they get replaced at 3/4 years regardless of whether they do the job still or not. I hardly class it as ridcoulsy high prices, coming from an ex bespoke furniture background, a £1000 per desk is nothing when it includes a PC. It does the job and will last a long time, the saying goes " You get what you pay for." The reason for having a CNC cutter is to make life easier and make producing each desk more efficent. They are currently developing new products whilst improving the exisiting ones. *Idesk - Don't knock it, till youv'e tried it* The £700 per desk, including all network cabling and the machines we spent here for custom designed furniture seems like a better deal to me... Bespoke furniture for the rooms, made with CNC machines like you mention. Sadly the company has gone out of business though (they were useless at marketting their products). The machines were Viglen all in one things, and when they are due for replacement, we have a vast array of options to replace them with.
vivalagoobs Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Well, we do replace computers for the sake of it... Its called our rolling replacement program. ie. they get replaced at 3/4 years regardless of whether they do the job still or not. The £700 per desk, including all network cabling and the machines we spent here for custom designed furniture seems like a better deal to me... Bespoke furniture for the rooms, made with CNC machines like you mention. Sadly the company has gone out of business though (they were useless at marketting their products). The machines were Viglen all in one things, and when they are due for replacement, we have a vast array of options to replace them with. I understand your rolling replacment program, but using the Idesk means you can just upgrade the computer components e.g. motherboard,Ram,HDD. This is by no means as expensive as buying a whole new PC soloution. My point is that you get what you pay for and I have seen it first hand, not only in IT soloution but in many other areas of business. Again its horses for courses, everyone has thier own opinion on things and people may not agree. If your previous soloution works then, its a shame that they went down the pan. Idesk works for us and we plan on using them in future.
OpsMan Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 I've been reading these feeds with interest for the past few days and am grateful for both the positive and negative comments, I would, after all, be foolish to think we were perfect in every way! One thing that does come through clearly is the positives have names and locations, the negatives tend to be from people not so keen to give names or locations, possibly due to them either not having our product or maybe due to them working for another supplier! First of all, should any customer of i-desk Solutions not be happy with the product or service, I have always said they can come direct to me and I will always do my very best to resolve any issues they may have, starting with a visit by myself to their school. With regard to cost and spec of desk and PC, its very simple, the number of desks you buy and the spec of the PC dictates the cost, as it would with a desktop or laptop, the higher the volume, the lower the unit cost as with any IT procurement you may have. With regard to room design, we do our best to sit down with you and come up with a design that is both functional and practical for the use you may have for the room, including duel functionality with our i-rise solution. Cabling and cooling has been mentioned in these feeds, i-desk Solutions are the only company in the world to hold a patent for the design of their desks, which includes the way its cabled and cooled. It should also be noted that with around 600 schools having i-desk over the past 9 years, not one PC has been stolen from one of our desk, another part of the design patent. There are many desking solutions on the market but when you take time to look at each product for what it is and for what you get, if you do, it becomes clear that the i-desk Solution is in a league of its own. Please take time to look at some of the links that have been added by our customers, we also offer full project management as part of your order, its not an extra cost. Should any have a requirement for the future, please call me direct on 01189 739 731 or email me at [email protected] I will do all I can to help you. Should you have a complaint or issue with an i-desk, please use the same above contact details but I should point out that as of 10am this morning, we had no outstanding issues logged with our in house support team or our on-site service providers. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Regards, Steve Morgan i-desk Solutions
Martin Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Sadly the company has gone out of business though (they were useless at marketting their products). ...or maybe their prices were too low mb
torledo Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 i don't doubt it requires a fair amount of expensive kit to get a good level of finish, and to create bespoke shapes, but would it really require a 500k milling machine to to get a decent quality surface ? i'm no expert, but if an in-house team is providing a small bespoke solution for a single room or area, wouldn't they be able to do by hand some of the jobs that are quicker and easier with a machine tool ? as for the legs, i mean chrome table legs can be purchased from various suppleirs at difference price points, i'm sure they can be provided in whatever size and finish is required. i'm not sure that's necessarily a USP. please don't take what i'm saying as being an expert opinion or a dis of any providers solution. To an extent i'm playing DA but also i'm genuinely interested in the achievable costs. excellent comments by localzuk, i tend to agree with a lot of what he's said. I personally would prefer an all-in-one solution like a mac and a small local provider who could design and built at a reasonable cost per seat. Not unreasonable is it ?
vivalagoobs Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 (edited) i don't doubt it requires a fair amount of expensive kit to get a good level of finish, and to create bespoke shapes, but would it really require a 500k milling machine to to get a decent quality surface ? i'm no expert, but if an in-house team is providing a small bespoke solution for a single room or area, wouldn't they be able to do by hand some of the jobs that are quicker and easier with a machine tool ? as for the legs, i mean chrome table legs can be purchased from various suppleirs at difference price points, i'm sure they can be provided in whatever size and finish is required. i'm not sure that's necessarily a USP. please don't take what i'm saying as being an expert opinion or a dis of any providers solution. To an extent i'm playing DA but also i'm genuinely interested in the achievable costs. excellent comments by localzuk, i tend to agree with a lot of what he's said. I personally would prefer an all-in-one solution like a mac and a small local provider who could design and built at a reasonable cost per seat. Not unreasonable is it ? Thats not unreasonable at all like i said before if thats what works for you then stick with it. On the furniture side of things. the boards that will be used by Idesk are bought in pre-laminated as it would be very costly and time consuming to apply laminate by hand on such a scale. In a small working environment, its easy to apply this yourself but human error can be made and ends up being costly and time consuming. Creating shapes without a CNC machine is easily done but again takes time esspecially if a large radius needs to be cut. Doing everything in house at a company such as Idesk would but unrealistic (due to a large demand of soloutions) as it would take more time - meaning larger costs and a longer wait for your product, Having large machinery just makes working alot more efficent. Where at a small firm where they are creating a small amount of soloutions, doing everything in house would be more effective on the production side of things. Hope this makes sense. Edited October 21, 2009 by vivalagoobs
british-wave Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 i don't doubt it requires a fair amount of expensive kit to get a good level of finish, and to create bespoke shapes, but would it really require a 500k milling machine to to get a decent quality surface ? No not really, I would agree with your point if you are only producing a small number of desks yourself. I desk are not. Therefore the maintenance on this piece of kit this has to be built into the costs. With a CNC though it means they are all identical and will slot togther. Each desk shape can be pre programmed in therefore no marking out time, before you even think about cutting. Would you be able to knock out about 8-10 desktops per hour for example. This gives all the air chanels under the desk all the screw holes exactly for the frames and the jigsaw piece ends that will fit exaclty each time every time with no messing around. As for the suface it is already like that when they cut it. The surface is not applied later on. The CNC also give a high level of finish, clean crisp edges this then placed in an edge bander to give an unexposed edge. I would suggest Torledo that you go and have a look at an I-desk install before passing judgement. Or attend Bett next year and I will be happy to meet up for a coffee on the Idesk stand to discuss further. Compare it to a bespoke fitting company install and see the difference/benifits/quality etc.
karldonteljames Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 I have to disagree with some people on here we have 32 i-desks, and they have been here for 5 years now. We have had a few where the heatsink holder broke and they were replaced under warranty. After 3 years we didnt extend our warranty and kept some of budget back for repairs, all we had to replace in year 4 was two fans costing approx £6 each. Our account manager is brilliant and is always there for us. I stared here two years ago, and had never seen i-deks before, at first i was joubious at the amount of space needed to work on the machines, and yes, sometimes the cable trays can be "tight" but there is ample room in the desks. This year we replaced 9 machines internal components, and ALL of the monitors and arms, the arms and components were ordered from idesk, who i must say were very competitive, i gave three companies the spec that i-desk gave us, and they struggled to match the prices. The monitors were all orderd from misco, as we insisted on 19" HardGlass and no one seamed to be able to get them anymore. Originally i beleive the suite cost us 40k for all the installation of network points (4 of) and electric sockets, which is a high amount of initial investment. Hoever this year we reaplaced 9 cassette components and it cost us approx £250 per unit, which IMHO is a bargain, same quality, same suite, better machines. I-desks can make the cassettes and bring them to you and install them for you too if you want them but we needed to save money. I do not come from an educational background i'm purly technical/management, i have lots of profered suppliers and they are also impressed with our suite. Yes the initial layout is high, BUT if you are planning appropriatly then it is worth it. After 4 years the original HG monitors were begining to fail and we could have just replaced 5 but as we higher the suite out we wanted to make an impression. I am perfectly happy for someone to come and look a tour suite if you are not convinced. alternativly i can send over some pictures on request. I would also be happy to meet people at the 2010 bett show i will be about on the wednesday and thursday, if you want to arrange a time to meet me at the idesk stand i'm sure british-wave and i can sort something out. We had a new Headteacher here this year and she beleives that suite is an assett to the school, and as the network manager here i am very proud of the suite that i took over, and have now made my own. Karl Dontel James Woods Kings Hill School
Techie101 Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 Hi all, We have been using I desk here for nearly 2 years. We now have 2 full IT suites of 30 machines, each with 18 machines using the I-Desk solution and then 12 with the I-Rise solution. The first classroom we spent ages looking for a solution and we could not find anything better for the solution we wanted. Link to pictures are as follows. http://www.wavellschool.org.uk/images/downloads/idesk.zip for pictures of our first installation. http://www.wavellschool.org.uk/images/downloads/idesk2.zip For picture of our third installation We also have put a 10 desk solution into out learning support dept as they had 6 machines in the room and we could not see how we could get more in. I desk came up trumps with this solution. http://www.wavellschool.org.uk/images/downloads/idesk3.zip for pictures of our second installation. We have also got 2 classrooms with the I desk basic as we had already purchased machines and we could not replace them with an I-Desk computer solution. These are the same size as an I desk but the PC sits on top rather than inside the desk. This solution is not as neat as the cables are still exposed but it can give you such a saving on space. Pictures for our 2 I desk basic classrooms can be found here http://www.wavellschool.org.uk/images/downloads/idesk4.zip As you can see not as neat cable wise, nothing that a lot of cable ties and time couldn’t sort, but it does provide a nice solution to save space. We have also just placed an order for a solution to go into our technology atrium. Its an I rise consisting of 23 seats. This was the best solution for a dept which needed and additional IT suite but the school did not have the space for it anywhere else. The desk is going to incorporate a pillar into the design. We are waiting on our next allocation of money to get some of our other rooms done in the same way and maybe take advantage of some of the alternative shapes, wavey lines, curves, hexagon shapes etc. The perception from staff is that it give a fresh clean and more spacious environment in which students are much more relaxed primarily because there is much more space to move around the classroom. Also they know what if something is not working it generally a problem the IT dept need to deal with as nothing can be disconnected. The best thing from a network managers point of view is that they come and do the installation for you. The amount of time its saved me on setup time and support it has been a god send to say the least. I have not dealt with any vandalism (not that its a major issues here) on these rooms but I have in other areas. If you can plan ahead an build an image in advance they will pre image the machines before installation. The rooms are well received by the students as they do have WOW factor especially in the rooms with the I-Rise sections. On a final note our account manager Steve Morgan has even attended site to see how the installations are going, and on occasions assist with the installations. I don’t know of any account managers that would do that !! If anyone wants to come and have look you are more than welcome. I love how you have a sink right next to one of your computers in one of the photos in idesk3.zip, lol. Is it a working sink?
vivalagoobs Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 I love how you have a sink right next to one of your computers in one of the photos in idesk3.zip, lol. Is it a working sink? Yes it is unforunately a working sink Its a problem in two rooms where we have the Idesk basic. they are going to be replaced within the up and coming months, nothing could be done about it when the desks were installed.
Techie101 Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 Just be careful coz, if i'm correct, its against electrical regs to have a sink or any water source near electrical equipment, the distance has to be greater than 500mm i think. So if its closer and something happens the school could be sued and would have no case, coz it broke electical safety regs.
brooker101 Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 A number of these kind of solutions cropping up now, appears to be more bolted solutions every year at the BETT Show. (Some pretty poor quality efforts, normally done by furniture companies). From my experience I-Desk and Ergo dominate the market for these products, and believe Ergo are very competitive as they don't need to outsource the IT element like I-Desk do. Not sure about the super imposed images of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair on the I-Desk brochure ! Looks a bit tacky.
OpsMan Posted October 23, 2009 Posted October 23, 2009 Hi, Interesting reading your post but thought I should add a reply. You are correct, there are a number of PC/desk solutions on the market but i-desk Solutions are the only company in the world to hold a patent for the cooling, cabling and connecting of the desks. You will see many copies of the i-desk out there but our customers are better placed to give honest feedback on how other such solutions stack up, they simply don't work as well as an i-desk nor do they last as long when looked after and properly maintained. Please contact the above posting from British-Wave who has three i-desk classrooms, pictures are on his feed or if you need to speak to another of our 600+ schools, please contact me direct and I'll put you in contact with a location local to you. Regarding the IT, i-desk build every PC in-house and fully support the PC with either an RTB or on-site warranty. Regarding pricing, I can assure you, long term cost of ownership with an i-desk is lower than any other solution and is fully upgradeable at any time but I'm more than happy to give you more details if you contact me direct. Hope I have been of help. Regards, Steve Morgan i-desk Solutions 01189 739 731
mortstar Posted October 23, 2009 Posted October 23, 2009 (edited) Amazing all these first time posters specifically signing up to a forum to sing the praises of a product. Sometimes I wonder what goes through the head of the marketing bods...then I remember it's all been destroyed by the coke... Edited October 23, 2009 by mortstar 3
jamin100 Posted October 23, 2009 Posted October 23, 2009 Amazing all these first time posters specifically signing up to a forum to sing the praises of a product. Sometimes I wonder what goes through the head of the marketing bods...then I remember it's all been destroyed by the coke... Exactly! I-DESK's suck big time! We had 12 about 4 years back (head thought they were a good idea) once they were in use it took about 6 months before all the PSU's died. Try getting a replacement PSU sent out for one of them under warranty! Then when they refuse to send one out try and find a compatible one on the market - ANYWHERE! just pants!
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