Does Your Company Let You Buy Used Computers?

[Aluminum_Butt]

For the first time ever, my company has PC's being retired that could actually have some useful life in them. We have tried to give away desktops in the past, but nobody ever wants them because you can get a new one for $300 these days. Now, however, I have some laptops, and I've got a few people clamoring to buy them for what the recycler will pay me - $100.

 

On one hand, I understand their excitement - it looks like a laptop for $100 - a good deal. But I know from experience that the hard drives will almost certainly fail in the next year or two. And what about licensing issues? Do I just hand them a blank PC? Or do I go through the hassels of reinstalling Windows? And don't they understand they can get a new one for $500 or less?

 

I'd really just like for it to all go away. I guess I'm hoping to hear that most companies don't do this. But if your company does, how do they handle it?

[russell_bynum]

I've only worked at one company that did that, and you got a blank system with a blank hard drive.

[stubble!]

We don't anymore. It's a huge resource drain for IT for the reasons you mention. Who chooses who gets it? Is there a sale price? Wipe procedures? And the biggest problem: What about when the employee "just has a quick question about ..." or "can you help with ...", regardless of how clear your policy is on "as-is/no support".

 

We finally put an end to it completely. Now our response to those looking to buy old hardware is that by the time has reached end-of-life with us, it means just that: we've used every last drop and it's only good for materials recycling.

 

And it's essentially true, notwithstanding those who might build low-spec Linux servers from them or something. But that's not our audience. If it were, there wouldn't

be a support problem. Instead, our potential buyers are looking for an old PC for Grandma or child, and in my opinion those situations are where you'd specifically want something reliable anyway, not an old POS.

[ltljohn]

My company used a silent auction to sell a bunch of retired laptops. The HD was cleaned and loaded with XP pro without office. I ended up with a laptop with a 30 GB HD, 512MB ram and a wireless card for $200.

They also sold them "as is no warranty" and no support so don't ask.

[smiller]

I used to do it when I was in charge of IT at our local office, although this was about ten years ago or so when cheap (especially for laptops) weren't so readily available as they are today. There was actually a fair demand from them, often more than the available supply permitted so we simply had a drawing for the right to buy. They got a PC with the OS (since that license came with the original PC/laptop.) Never really had an issues of problems and the employees appreciated it. The problem with making up an excuse for not doing it is that employees are pretty quick to pick up on the fact that this just means the company doesn't feel it is worth any effort to accommodate employees in this way. There was a small amount of company time/effort involved in the process but the company felt that it was worth doing simply as an employee benefit. Depends on the corporate culture I guess. This is for a quantity of around 20 or so maybe once each year, if it were 200 or 2,000 then I could see that presenting a more significant issue.

[Calvin (no socks)]

Yeah, we are currently using units from the 70's....green screens....where do I sign up...excellent boat anchors..

[Gregori]

A former employer had a 'silent auction' system for old computer equipment, with a minimum bid.

They placed all the comparable spec units in a group, and you could put in one bid per group.

They'd start at the high bid per lot, and worked their way down until they ran out of computers.

If you won in two categories, you could choose which one you preferred to have.

One computer per employee, unless there were more computers than bidders. (Oftentimes, people ended up getting a better unit than they'd bid on, because the lower spec units had all the bidders, and the higher spec units none.)

If there was more hardware than bidders, they'd offer the option to buy multiple pieces.

 

At one point, I bought a whole ROOM full of computers (desktops, servers, and laptops) as well as printers, peripherals, monitors, etc. for about $300. I'd heard that the division had some Macs, and when I inquired about them he told me I could have the Macs at that price, as long as I took the whole lot. (They agreed to take back anything that was dead once I tested them.)

It took me 4 or 5 trips with my pickup truck loaded (inside and out) as high and full as I dared, to clear it out, and my garage was unusable by the time I was done. It took me months to test it all, and I built complete machines out of the various half-dead/cannibalized PCs. (The Macs all worked.)

 

After keeping what I wanted for myself, I gave to friends or sold on eBay most of the good stuff. An "outreach" group took all the functional but outdated ones to take to schools in Mexico, and the remainder was taken away by the readers of the Craigslist "free" ads. Only four or five monitors were actually dead, and those went back to my employer for proper recycling.

 

I made enough to buy a couple of jet-skis, and enough gas money to play on them for a couple of summers. The recycler had been going to charge the company to remove it all, so it turned out a win for everyone involved (except the recycler!)

Oh yeah - the company put the funds (what they'd budgeted for the recycler plus my payment) into the 'employee appreciate fund' that pays for birthday cakes, going-away lunches, and the like.

[szurszewski]

The last school district I worked for/taught in had a provision under which teachers/administrators could purchase "their" laptops when a new batch was rolled out. (Currently teachers are getting new machines every 2 or 4 year depending on their site/school, so the machines are still quite serviceable {if they've been cared for} ... or at least I think so, but our main comp at home is G3 Powerbook circa 2000).

[KingBiscuit]

I have been in IT for over 25 years, and I've never seen a company sell used PCs. A lot of that time was spent in the financial world and it's just a nono to let your old hardware stay intact. The last company would actually shred the processors, and have it certified by the shredding company. Same with old tapes, etc.

 

For what it's worth,

Dan

[velomoto]

We've given away old PC's and other equipment but never sold it. Most of the people ended up using these to work at home when they weren't feeling well enough to come into the office or when we had critical deadlines.

 

Regarding trade secrets which may be on the PC's - we don't worry about that cuz anyone who wants to steal trade secrets has ample opportunity to do so. We respect the integrity of people until they show they need to be treated otherwise.

 

Regarding drive replacement, if the units are Mac's it is trivial to duplicate the data to a new drive and perhaps a bit more difficult for a PC. But this would be for the employee to do and not something the company would do.

 

While I agree with others have said, that PC's 3+ years old have little value for the intrinsic hardware. However a notebook with Microsoft Office and a wireless card can be very useful to a family on a tight budget with several kids needing a computer to access the internet for homework.

 

One thing which amazes me is how Mac's maintain their value. I was looking to replace a dead Mac for my kids with an "inexpensive" 5+ year old Mac's on ebay or craigslist, but I was more than a little surprised to find the faster versions of these old models are selling for $600 and up!

[smiller]

The last company would actually shred the processors

[russell_bynum]

The last company would actually shred the processors

 

 

You know...in case there's some old data stuck in a corner of the chip or something. Those things are full of little nooks and crannies where data can get stuck.

 

[DavidEBSmith]

They need to be sure to empty out the bit bucket, too.

[Hermes]

Just wondering if there might be a charitable organization that would distribute a company's outdated IT supply to underdeveloped countries.

 

I worked in the public environment (municipal) and we had an annual auction that sold off not only PCs, but all sorts of other items, lawnmowers, tractors, beds, coffemakers...you get the idea.

What might be of interest with such auction, is that the auctineer also took into commission items from private companies.

 

Jurgen

[Ken H.]

CPSR

[Woodie]

Not any more. Got to be too much hassle. (~5-10,000 per year, spread various offices around the US).

 

They were typically over-priced, but with the laptops you got the docking stations thrown in, so they weren't a bad deal.

 

Blank machines, no OS, no license. Disks wiped to some DOD standard.

[bimmers]

we have a 30 p office and we do sell them wiped clean with no service or warranty. THey have been generally through first hard daily work then a few years of spare and finally out so they are really not good for much.

You can use some as servers at home but with todays prices it is not really worthwhile at all. Just get a new one with XP installed (or Vista!!!) for say 450 or a blank one for 100bucks.

[ghaverkamp]

(or Vista!!!)

 

So the new computer can run like an old one...

[smiller]

(or Vista!!!)

So the new computer can run like an old one...

If only that were true...

[bakerzdosen]

I would never buy a used computer from my company. They're pretty much all used up by that point... 10 years is well beyond it's usable life.