Lease a Computer?

At home, no. At work, absolutely. We lease a whole variety of equipment at work - PCs, printers, copiers, lab equipment, etc. It's especially a good deal if you have a nice fat government contract top charge it all to.

This is an idea that has been tried--and for very reasonable rates--and ultimately failed dismally; and the business prospect was much better then than now. So I would see it as a very high risk venture...against overhwhelming competition, and with scant likelihood of a successful business plan. The latter would include the virtual impossibility of financial backing needed to build and sustain the needed volume. A major (probably insurmountable) obstacle would be your inability to exert any control over supply--system's cost and availability. Think of vehicle leasing, for example. While leasing has its advantages for businesses and niche markets, for a market like the one you propose to serve, vehicle purchase is always the more economical (read less expensive) alternative. The other reasons arguing against such a venture are too numerous--those not against too few--to mention here. But a simple exercise should give the answer you seek. Start with potential financial backers to see if there were any who would back such an enterprise. They will explain why not! Or, check with business insurance writers to see how much it would cost you in premiums to insure such a business. Factor in the premium with your lease rates--assuming you are able to get a quote--and you might find that a consumer PC lease business is a non-starter idea. Hope this helps.

I can imagine a niche market of companies that ramp up by bringing on a lot of employees for a fairly short time, but I don't know what those types of organizations would do. Something like a call center maybe, but they tend to keep their people and infrastructure and move on to other business markets.

I would think some small businesses would find it attractive to lease rather than purchase their computer equipment, especially if they can get it at a good price - if the business fails they can just return the equipment and stop paying as opposed to having to try to sell their used gear to try and recoup their losses.

I'm sure there are markets out there, but I think you will be hard pressed to find them. If you can finance it yourself, more power to you. If you are going to need financial backing, I think you will be hard pressed to get any without having discovered those niches.

I would say try the mom & pops in town - that is likely your niche market. If they can be assured of quality gear that you'll upgrade occassionally, then they don't have to worry about their gear becoming obsolete and having to buy new gear every time their software needs upgrading. Good luck with your research!

You would do better to sell your services as a refurbisher/setup/systems guy. Offer to do the upgrades & resell the eq to other customers.

In other words just leave out the lease part & you're on to something w/ minimal overhead, getting paid for your skills [brain]. Concentrate on training & service!

First, I wish you good fortune. I think you could succeed with your plan over the long term if your goals are modest, you keep your overhead low, you aim for the right market, and have the patience to deal with that market. People who are already computer savvy know what they need and can get it at almost the same price you can. They are not your market.

Your market is the grandmother who wants a computer because her grandkids tell her she needs one. She(or the kids) will pay you monthly to tell her (again) how to open her e-mail. And she wont feel bad after 6 months looking at an overpriced dusty computer that she hasn't turned on in 5 and a half months because the kids got better things to do than help granny with her email.

Your market is also those with very low income. Who, unfortunately, are forced to overpay in the long run because they cannot scrape together enough for a new computer all at once. Because of that they settle for used out of date or severely underpowered machines that never work quite right or cant run the applications they want to use. Rent -a- Center, Blue Hippo and the like do well gouging these folks. I'm sure they would welcome a slightly lower priced, local, place that can also offer support.

Your ability to offer support without spreading yourself too thin is what will determine your success.

There are literally tons of old computers available for free or close to it. Churches and schools have mostly stopped accepting them because they have to pay to get rid of them. Every summer when college lets out the curbs are lined with free computers because to the students they aren't even worth the space in the U-haul trailer back home.

I have a few old machines that would have been garbage if my laptop hadn't died recently pressing them back into service. Luckily, a few days earlier I got curious about Linux/Unix and downloaded and burned a variety of distributions. In much less time than it takes to install 1 copy of windows and all my applications I had installed XUbuntu, Mandriva, and Gentoo on 3 old machines. Each worked great. Much better than win 98, the last windows version that would run on their limited memory and CPU. Plus it came with a huge assortment of useful and free software. Full Office suite, internet tools, games, development packages and several versions of each. A beginner could buy/lease one of these from you for a song and in no time be the envy of the trailer park, learning to program, and working for you.

slo

From a business user standpoint, standardization is critical.

Each business has to evaluate the buy/lease issue. Their philosphy will determine which is best for them.

With low margin desktop PCs, it would be simpler to keep trading in every three years than to fuss with different configurations and such.

For you, computers are fun. For Mangement, they are a time and money sink.

Software often becomes a bigger issue than hardware costs.

COMING EXAMPLE is Windows Vista. Where would a major change likethis leave you business plan >>

Steve

One more note:

Most businesses don't like leasing computer because of the sensitive information that may get stored on the PC. The company don't want people to know their "secrets", and beside, most company don't want constant upgrade (either thought the employee do). However, if you can sell your service as an IT specialist at a reasonable price, and you can show them you're reliable, then you will do well in your business.

MidniteFighter