January 2005 — Industry Perspective
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Making the Most of Less
Large corporations that use graphic-intensive programs or do a lot of number crunching have a continuing need to upgrade roughly every three years. Yet the equipment they’re replacing is more than up to the task of word processing, working with spreadsheets, creating presentations and surfing the Internet. It’s also well-suited for running education-specific programs, both academic and administrative.True, you won’t have a screaming fast Pentium 4 unit with a 2.4 GHz processor. But you will have one with a Pentium III
733 MHz processor, and more than enough hard drive space for an entire year’s worth of projects. Actually, make that two or three for every P4 unit you would have bought.
Perception 2: Used = No Warranty
The validity of this perception depends on the source from which you acquire the technology. If you deal with a company or reseller that specializes in the secondary equipment market, you could actually come out ahead on the warranty.
Consider that a new computer or monitor generally comes with a one-year warranty. If something g'es wrong during that period, you generally have to pack up the unit and ship it back to the manufacturer for repairs. In the meantime, you’re out that unit.
With a computer refurbished by a specialist company, however, you often have a longer warranty period. For example, CDI offers a three-year warranty on PCs and monitors, which is the normal length of time before the next upgrade. This means that the unit is under warranty throughout its useful life. In addition, most specialists will provide an exact replacement unit immediately if there’s a problem, so your institution is always at its full-computing strength.
Perception 3: Used=Not Enough Volume
In the past, districts looking to add hundreds or thousands of PCs at a time have shied away from used gear, assuming that the volume of same-type units isn’t available. But this is no longer true. When large corporations do an upgrade they usually buy in the thousands. When it’s time to replace that gear, they replace them in the thousands as well. Thus, specialists who help corporations dispose of their old gear acquire it in the thousands. This gives them more than enough inventory for even the largest districtwide purchases. And since these corporations often purchase brand-name equipment, those are the brands stocked in volume by the used-equipment specialists.
Perception 4: Used = Someone Else’s Troubles
There are a lot of sources for used equipment. Some do a good job in preparing their units for resale, while others do only a cursory job. That’s why it’s important to know the companies you’re buying from and what process they follow to refurbish the units.
A quality supplier of used equipment will take every unit apart and clean it inside and out. While there may be a few blemishes, it shouldn’t appear dirty or worn. For a PC or notebook, the hard drive shouldn’t just be reformatted once. It should be scrubbed thoroughly to remove any residual data using programs designed specifically for that purpose.
