Integrated ICT and infrastructure provider Vox has entered into an exclusive partnership with Go Rentals to introduce a hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) offering, which is aimed at providing local small and medium businesses with quick, affordable, and scalable access to a wide variety of IT infrastructure — as well as the management thereof.

“Despite an increasingly competitive business environment where every rand counts, many business owners are still buying technology-based equipment outright rather than renting it. The problem with this is that the modern device arena has grown in variety and complexity, making it more difficult to manage, and to reduce the overheads of controlling these devices,” says Barry Kemp, head of managed IT at Vox.

According to Kemp, there is a global trend being observed in businesses moving away from owning and managing IT infrastructure. This started with the move away from servers and toward cloud-based subscription services, and now organisations are looking to do the same with the remaining on-premise hardware — employees’ desktop systems.

The availability of HaaS changes the way in which local businesses consume IT, by allowing them to direct valuable capital expenditure toward the more efficient and competitive operation of their organisation, rather than spending on hardware products.

“The rental costs are up to 50% lower than if they buy these products through traditional asset financing methods. Furthermore, using HaaS gives businesses the ability to scale up and down depending on their infrastructure requirements. Customers on a 12-month contract can return up to 10% of the devices rented, while those customers on 24- and 36-month contracts can return up to 20% of the devices — at any time during the contract,” adds Kemp.

HaaS gives business access to repurposed tier-1 hardware from vendors such as Dell, HP and Lenovo, equipped with the required specifications (processor, memory and storage), and come installed with the latest Microsoft Windows operating system, unless an older version is specifically requested by the customer.

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“Where HaaS is different from simply renting IT hardware is that businesses get full asset life-cycle management, such as having all company software pre-installed, flexible refresh cycles and upgrades, support and warranty management, and transparent and predictable per-user monthly fees,” says Kemp.

The ability to upgrade during the contract period means that businesses can keep pace with the latest in technology without needing to invest on depreciating equipment, while ensuring maximum productivity and efficiency for employees. Returned devices are put through a decommissioning process that ensures anonymity, certified data protection, and environmental compliance.

Businesses further stand to benefit from Vox Care, which incorporates asset management and logistical services for customers. This includes initial delivery and setup in major centres, asset-tagging of all rented items, creation, and the repair and/or replacement of faulty machines within three business days — again in the main metropolitan areas.

Vox Care also assists in the design, testing and deployment of custom images, whereby HaaS clients can have the additional programs they need (security, productivity tools, business software, etc) easily pre-installed along with the Windows operating system, on all their machines.

Kemp adds that HaaS customers can get further peace of mind by outsourcing the day-to-day management of their desktop environment to Vox Managed Services, as well as leverage the company’s knowledge and expertise to manage and host workstation backups to ensure business continuity.

“Hardware-as-a-service allows businesses to reduce the total cost of ownership of their hardware and ensure they only pay for what they use. Making the switch to a service model helps them take advantage of the global move in this direction, and to turn their business into a highly functional, flexible, low cost, change your mind whenever you want workplace,” concludes Kemp.