Home Computer Initiative

Loki

Loki

Loki

Soldato
Joined
17 Nov 2004
Posts
10,103
Location
The Republic
Has anyone hear got this running at their place of work. Basically its a Government backed scheme whereby you can hire a PC at a dratically reduced rate and then have the option of purchasing it at the end of the agreement. Your employer gets the benefit of some tax relief. Its open to all companies.

DTI Blurb on it

A lad who I know got one through his mums company. They said goto a PC shop spec up a system and then it gets deducted at a reduced rate from your wages.

At our place we get a choice of 10 differnt systems and laptops from Dell and Apple.

Just wondered if anyone heard of it/used it and what there thoughts were
 
I don’t like it. You'll still be paying for these machines in 3 years time, and the thought of still paying for vastly out of date kit doesn't suit me at all.

I had a flick through one of the brochures, and what struck me was that the spec of machines is rather high in most cases as well. It surprised me, as I thought the target demographic were those who have low income, or are computer illiterate. Why would they need the fastest dual core processors with high end graphics (and have to pay for them)?

Just smells of a good idea that got lost along the way.
 
Its a great idea for people that dont like to upgrade the PC's that often as the savings made to both the Employee and Employer are quite large, upto 40% for higher tax payers. Granted the idea of paying for a machine 3 years down the road doesnt really appeal, but then if its only 20-30 per month its not that much considering what you can get.
 
At my place of work the whole scheme stinks, it's been perverted from something useful especially for those too skint to shell out in one go, to a method for the company to make more money.

The whole deal was handed over to an unkown reseller who specced up three laptops and three desktops with ridiculous specs.

The laptops started at £1500 and ended at £2500 and none were anywhere near as good as my £1000 lappy that has widescreen, Geforce 6800 and 3 years support etc.

The desktops had weird things such as 2 160GB drives RAIDED for performance paired with a Celeron processor and onboard video, it was labelled a gaming machine and came in at a cool £1200!

I tried to "educate" as many people as I could but they sold a fair few. Disgusts me that the company would take the wee wee like that. Especially as I work in IT and sit next to procurement who order the very same models of laptop for field staff at a fraction of those costs.

Check the scheme very carefully, it isn't always for the staffs benefit.
 
My work does it, get a choice of HP stuff. I dont think its a great idea to have to be paying for them over a 3 year period and if you leave you need to pay the balance out of your last pay.
 
My boyfriends signed up for BT home computing initiative before Xmas, we still havent got our Mac Mini :( Its a nightmare with some companies.

By the time we get it, it will be miles out of date and we will still have to pay for it for 3 years

Aaron
 
fluiduk said:
My boyfriends signed up for BT home computing initiative before Xmas, we still havent got our Mac Mini :( Its a nightmare with some companies.

By the time we get it, it will be miles out of date and we will still have to pay for it for 3 years

Aaron
Click to expand...
I was quite interested in getting an Apple Notebook but fear that it might get delayed and be out of date by the end of the three years. Saying that £17.00 a month aint too bad
 
Schemeis a great big con. Yeah you get the computer with tax breaks but you pay for it over three years and often have to add monitor etc.

The machines are overpriced.

But it will benefit some people just not me!!!

I currently have a Ultra Portable laptop on loan thanks to Sir Alan Sugar (well Viglen anyway!)
 
We did this at work last year, October i think it was. I work for the Local Government here, and we had a choice of 3 laptops and 3 Desktops, all from HP.

The Desktops were really bad, like it was mentioned before weird things spec'd together, celeron and raid type things! It was all the low bidge fastest things you could buy.

I got a HP !7" Widescreen laptop, its a good spec and yeah, ok in 3 years time it will be out of date but its a 3.2 P4, 1gb Ram, 100gb HDD, Good GFX in there and all the connections i could need.

It works out it costs me £26 per month, but every april we get an Increment, that adds cost of living, so it doesnt really cost owt in a round about way!
 
Otacon said:
I don’t like it. You'll still be paying for these machines in 3 years time, and the thought of still paying for vastly out of date kit doesn't suit me at all.

I had a flick through one of the brochures, and what struck me was that the spec of machines is rather high in most cases as well. It surprised me, as I thought the target demographic were those who have low income, or are computer illiterate. Why would they need the fastest dual core processors with high end graphics (and have to pay for them)?

Just smells of a good idea that got lost along the way.
Click to expand...


Think the other thing is though, that speccing high level machines in some cases would enable an employer to let someone work from home at times with a bit of flexibility.
 
Jest3r said:
Think the other thing is though, that speccing high level machines in some cases would enable an employer to let someone work from home at times with a bit of flexibility.
Click to expand...
A very large portion of corperate users need no more than office apps, DTP at most.

You dont need a high spec machine for that.
 
a mate of mine is a trainee accountant, and has done this a couple of times in the past. its only certain employers that run this scheme. the way my mate does it is he pays off the machine over about 7 months. and saves himself arround 3-400 each time.
well worth it imo.
 
I am on the other end of this - I work in a shop that supplies PCs to HCI-involved comapnies.

They get to choose what they want from quite a large list of stuff and can apply for as much or as little as they want. Most people tend to CHOOSE to go for the very very high spec machines and throw in a whole load of other products to go with them too.

OK, you pay for it over 3 years but its fairly "safe" and compared to those who get the machines on credit, its not that bad.
 
Loki said:
Has anyone hear got this running at their place of work. Basically its a Government backed scheme whereby you can hire a PC at a dratically reduced rate and then have the option of purchasing it at the end of the agreement. Your employer gets the benefit of some tax relief. Its open to all companies.

DTI Blurb on it
Click to expand...

Yep, I've got a Dell Laptop and 19" tft from work for ~£30 a month and I'm loving them! Whether I'll have it in 3 years is a different story but I think it's a good idea! :D

got mine through bt home computing through work http://www.bthomecomputing.com
 
Just got an email from one of my colleagues. It would appear that Chairmen Brown & Blair think this is too much of a good deal. So the scheme effectively closes on the 6th April this year. I spoke with the company running ours today and as long as the documents are on site before the 6th we will be cool. Of all the things that could help bridge the digital divide and they go and close it :mad:

Apple iBookG4 for £23.00 winging its way to Chez Loki as we speak
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom