Let me just go ahead and get this out of the way now:
If we can find a viable and sustainable means to support the continued
purchase of hardware from an area resller, I'm all for it.
I'd like to reiterate and reaffirm (and hopefully do more than simply repeat)
a couple of Nate's points, albeit from the shop perspective:
[1] Increased throughput.
Buying "naked" and (assumably) fully-functioning machines would greatly
reduce the amount of time spent tearing apart and rebuilding hardware.
Less time spent per machine means more boxes in the same amount of time.
For this to be of any value, we'd obviously have to increase the number of
students coming through our doors. But something tells me that's not a
problem. =)
[2] Newer hardware.
Much of the stuff EPC buys is corporate, end-of-lease hardware. As the
industry standard for the desktop PC lifecycle is typically two (2) to
three (3) years, this would provide us much more recent hardware than we
normally see.
Newer hardware would not only have a longer service life, but the
increased performance capabilities of the machines may afford us the
opportunity to include things in the cirriculum that would otherwise prove
difficult. (More media-centric tasks perhaps?)
Additionally, these end-of-lease machines are usually bought in lots. If
we in turn purchase a quantity of identical (or near-identical) PCs, this
consistency should simplify things for the shop.
(It should also alleviate any disparity- perceived or otherwise- between
students in the same class.)
Well, there's my $0.02.
-mej-
:wq!
On Tue, Sep 02, 2008 at 06:41:09AM -0000, nneff wrote:
> I am in absolute favor of researching the idea of purchasing PCs from
> WITS, or EPC or other computer re-sellers that sell "naked" PCs.
>
> I called EPC in St. Charles several months ago, and received a price
> of ~$70 for significantly better PCs than the ones that Robert
> mentioned. If we can mitigate this price with a donation from EPC or
> other grants, then I can see Byteworks doubling the number of students
> that we teach, as well as providing them with machines that will be
> usable for a longer time than the ones we're providing now.
>
> This will not obviate the need for the shop-side of Byteworks. We
> will still need the shop to process the purchased computers, install
> software, and still take in donated computers. In fact, I could see
> the need for *more* shop volunteers due to the increased amount of
> throughput.
>
> There would be a lot of work in buying the computers, installing
> software, finding peripherals, etc.. In addition, I bet we'd get a
> fair amount of DOA computers that we'd have to take back, even from
> vendors like WITS. This would need to be taken into consideration.
>
> There is a definite price-point that I would like to identify, and I
> will bring it up at the next board meeting. If we could double our
> student throughput, we could make a great case for getting more grants
> as well.
>
> I would appreciate thoughts, especially from our shop volunteers about
> the issues we'd have to consider if we would buy some of our
> computers. I think it's in Byteworks best interest to continue to
> take donated computers/equipment. It is very valuable to maintain a
> community relationship where people can see their donations going
> towards a worthy cause.
>
> We've discussed this before, but it would be nice to get a refresher
> on the subject. Please throw any links to prior discussions onto this
> conversation if that would help.
