Has anybody any experience with leasing?

Looking at replacing a bunch of aging kit (between 5 and 10 years old), which will require a lot of investing. Leasing looks like an interesting alternative (looking at Dell Capital Services site at the moment), but haven't seen any quotes yet and not sure if there are any catches, so I would like some feedback, if anybody has used hardware leasing in the past.

I've never tried it but the obvious thoughts would be

Duration you are stuck with Kit for.

Can you change Kit, if your needs change, half way through contract and if so how big is the penalty?

Total Cost v buying.

SLA's for support ( as you are stuck with them )

Are there any gotcha's regarding environment ( temp etc ) or software / OS you can run / how hard you can work them.

In the UK leasing is an operating cost not a capital cost and therefore you cannot get the 1year tax write off.

As I say just some thoughts not based on experience.

Given that we are a Windows business and then only Outlook, Excel and Navision are in regular use, the changes in requirement aren't going to be that great.

The 3 year term seems good to me - I'm having to fight tooth and nail to get 2002-2003 vintage machines replaced!

I used to work at Roehampton University http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/ as part of ICT team

The university leases all of it hardware - computer et al - but not there servers

With the hardware we could upgraded and change computers totally or put our own DVD RW/RAM or anything else we needed etc in them as long with brought them from the leasing company (the price was not too much more then buying for the high street+admin fee)- if anything went bag big time we could change/have a new computer delivered the next day at no cost - but look at the small print - some times this is not covered at all or there is a limit of X number of times they replace a computer them after that you pay big time

We could change and do what we want with the software

like all contract and leasing you need a VAT number if based in the UK to do this

for this experience this work well with the university - we where using IBM kit made in China and the university had between 700-1000 PC on two campuses

Mark

Thanks Mark.

I'm working in Germany, MwsT registered and probably looking at around 100 PCs...

Have a look at Microsoft Finance (available through Certified & Gold Partners) or HP's finance deals. They're rather good at the moment (and can include any labour costs for the nav migration etc)