Need to make a very large purchase through Newegg

[Mxylplyx]

Originally posted by: Kelvrick

Originally posted by: nweaver

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
Birmingham, AL recently did this when purchasing a few thousands laptops from Dell, thinking it will make the kids in their failing schools smarter. Of course it didnt, and a few years later, Dell filed a lawsuit against the city for lack of payment. I sure as hell wouldnt do it if I were newegg.

they would have been WAY better off spending that money on new books and a new teacher

Eh, enough money is already being thrown at public schools imo. Iono how it is over there in AL, but the system needs to be reworked with too much wasted in administrative sections.

First day of school in Birmingham city schools is the "just show up" day. They need the delinquents to show up for the first day so they can be counted for maximum federal funding. After that, they can go about their gang banger ways.

 

[Tsaico]

I deal with quite a bit of purchasing and of course network support. While I see what the OP is trying to justify, I would still agree with Spidey.

I understand the overall project costs need to get pushed down, but there are things they need to factor in that are harder to quantify.

1. Updating drivers, finding updated drivers. Custom, you first have to identify what part was used and find each individual component, keep track of said components, and visit each site to check for updates. Pre-built, you go to a single site to do all of this.

2. Keeping track of hardware inventories. Often the boon of any IT office's lives. Now you have to keep track of each individual component and it's age as well as the normal tracking of location and what part of it's life cycle it is in.

3. My company primarily deals with Dell. (but all the major players have teh same service) Since we buy larger quantities like yours ( about 30 machines at a time) we often get huge price breaks from them. After buying the gold support, which was about 50 a machine, they came out to about a grand a peice. A monitor for another 180 bucks. If something fails, we just call our gold number support line, tell them the problem, they overnight a new part and we ship the dead one back. With newegg warranty, you will have to buy a new part and pay for your own overnight and then you will have an extra part when the process is finished. Or you can just wait for the RMA to finish. If you go this route, not only are you losing the money on your time, but the time on the employee's job too.

4. It also puts all the strain on your office. If you are sick or on vacation, your company is screwed. With a major pre-built group, such as Dell, they can give a service tag and the tech already knows what parts on in it, who to send to, etc, regardless of who is reading the tag. And from personal experience, the gold number is a different level of service. They do not waste your time with "Try this, then this". They understand you are IT and they will just send you the part you request.

5. While I am pretty quick with diagnosing hardware issues, there are a couple that do plague me. Perhaps not 16 hours plague, but more then just a clicking hard drive or something. In the Gold warranty support, it doesn't matter. I just request a whole new machine and they overnight it, and I send the entire thing back. I can just pull the HD sometimes and plop it into the one that just arrived and the end user doesn't even notice a change. You may or may not be able to do that with a custom, since they move so much faster technology wise. Your mother board might not even be made anymore, so you get the next closest thing. If this is the case, you get to reload the OS from scratch and all the apps, since your image no longer represents what your hardware is. You also have to now put a footnote in that you have 43 computers that are identical, but Sally's is now different. Which increases the numbers of things to keep track of, and increases of problem 1, more time on your part used.

So with these things in mind, I could have probably built the things myself for about 800-ish with the same price monitor, but then the extra service I get and the money lost in my time and the emloyee's time justifies it. I also vote call CDW/Dell, and find out what they can do for you.

Overall, while I see that it might take a while to "recover" and justify the cost discrepency, it still makes more sense to just buy them already built. Spidey isn't just talking out of his a$$, but he has a good overall picture of cost of ownership. Not to mention, it is puts the department into depending on you and your skills. What would happen to them if you found a new job? Would the next guy be as good? Generally speaking, it is best to set things up in a standard manner, so if you left, anyone in IT could take your place and not miss a beat.

 

[smack Down]

One big advantage of building your own systems is you can beg manufacturers to donate equipment.

When my college replaced an HP unix lab with AMD64 running linux, HP couldn't come anywhere close to matching the price of custom built PC's with free top of the line AMD processors.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: Crazee
I have one word for you - LEASE. Talk to Dell Financial services or some other reputable leasing group. (FYI if you use Dell Financial you don't have to buy Dells).

They can set up a master lease agreement where you have the option to purchase the items at the end of a 3 year lease. At the end of that time, you can have them repurchase the systems back from you and if they are in good shape, you can get a decent price for them since Dell can resell them in Central/South America.

I am an IT Director with a college and after we did the numbers we found that the net amount we would pay would actually be slightly less than if we bought the machines. Then we could turn around and refresh every 3 years and have an evergreen environment. We can also lease printers, switches, servers, etc if we want to and if they make sense.

This would allow you to spread the payment over 3 years and not have it hit all at once.

In my experience, Dell rates suck. Graybar has been very good to us, though.

 

[Crazee]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: Crazee
I have one word for you - LEASE. Talk to Dell Financial services or some other reputable leasing group. (FYI if you use Dell Financial you don't have to buy Dells).

They can set up a master lease agreement where you have the option to purchase the items at the end of a 3 year lease. At the end of that time, you can have them repurchase the systems back from you and if they are in good shape, you can get a decent price for them since Dell can resell them in Central/South America.

I am an IT Director with a college and after we did the numbers we found that the net amount we would pay would actually be slightly less than if we bought the machines. Then we could turn around and refresh every 3 years and have an evergreen environment. We can also lease printers, switches, servers, etc if we want to and if they make sense.

This would allow you to spread the payment over 3 years and not have it hit all at once.

In my experience, Dell rates suck. Graybar has been very good to us, though.

Yeah we get better rates and terms being a public institution and Dell having a contract with the state, but if I were corporate I would most likely look at Graybar.

As for the guy who keeps saying you have to reimage the Dell machine, they will put your image on the machine if you supply it at the time of the order.