In recent years the nature of ICT in enterprises has been slowly but surely shifting from a purely technical one to one that is more concerned with the impact of technology on business processes. This has led to the introduction of new ways for companies to procure their ICT systems, including leasing and outsourcing of systems.
Now Maltese enterprises have a new option: renting.
After leasing and outsourcing, Smart Technologies has now moved into a third area of operation and are renting PCs. In the few years since its launch, the company has already registered changes in trends in the local ICT needs and has thus embarked on this new form of service to respond to the demands of the changing ICT needs of local businesses.
“There is a demand for renting PCs today,” Chris Demicoli, business development manager at Smart Technologies told i-Tech.
“We have been offering this renting service for these past seven months, focusing mainly on the renting of PCs, laptops and netbooks both for the short term as well as for the longer term. We had requests from conferences, exhibitions, such as the EMBED ICT in education event held in May, and companies who want to employ temporary seasonal workers and need to provide them with a computer for a few weeks. We are satisfied with the response so far.”
Renting starts from as little as €5 a day for a laptop. The client does not need to purchase the equipment and will only be paying a fraction of what the equipment is worth. During the term of rent, the equipment will be insured against accidental damage and also covered for any hardware maintenance (repair or replace) so that the client has minimum downtime. After every rent each PC is fresh formatted to delete all data left by the previous user.
Smart Technologies also provides IT support on site that includes temporary Wi-Fi connectivity. In the case of large events they even assign one of their staff to stay on site for the duration of the event.
“We are planning to move into the renting of other hardware such as tablets, tablets with keyboards and similar hardware,” added Mr Demicoli.
In the meantime the concept of PC leasing has taken root and Smart Technologies has around 15,000 of its PCs on lease with government, apart from many other computers leased to private enterprises.
The company explains that if the equipment will be used long-term without expected replacement, purchasing may be the most cost-effective solution. However, leasing empowers businesses to easily replace and upgrade obsolescent technology without worrying about initial acquisition costs or how to dispose of it.
PCs are leased for a period of three or five years, by which time the company can retain the equipment. The most popular duration of a lease is three years, as technological developments impose on many companies the need to refresh their hardware every few years.
For very small companies there is even another alternative to leasing, and this is outsourcing.
“Small enterprises which do not need full-time IT staff or cannot afford the post can get outsourced IT services from Smart Technologies. This is an area we are trying to expand,” Mr Demicoli said.
When companies outsource their IT systems, they enter into an agreement with a third party which takes on the planning, building, running and monitoring of the company’s IT systems.
Smart Technologies was established in 2008 by Demajo Holdings, Forestals Investments, Hili Company Ltd. and VJ Salomone Group and launched the concept of leasing on a national scale.
It is an HP gold partner, a Cisco registered partner, a Microsoft authorised re-seller, and provides equipment from such vendors as Sony, Apple and Lenovo.