High level computer purchase advice for likely 60-65 machines 8

[kjv1611]

First off, for anyone reading this who didn't read elsewhere, I was laid off from my employer of 16 years at the end of April, but found a new role with a different company this week, thank the Lord.

One item that will end up becoming a bigger more important question in the next month, I think, is the purchase/upgrade of all new machines or practically all new machines company-wide. I don't know a LOT of details yet, as I've been primarily working in other areas, but they have been at least picking my brain for thoughts in this area.

I realize this might cause somewhat of a firestorm with folks' opinions, but I'd like to get some real world experience when dealing with multiple machines.
[ol 1][li]Perhaps here are a few things I'm curious about for now:[/li]
[li]What are y'all's experiences in dealing with corporate environments and using all same or basically the same hardware and/or software? Is there ANY bad reason to have all or mostly the same?[/li]
[li]As far as computer manufacturers, can anyone share any real life experiences comparing the likes of Dell, HP, or even some of the smaller or outside companies. I think we're likely leaning towards Dell so far, but I'd like to see what other thoughts are out there as well. In my limited knowledge in the area, I do think Dell seems to be good to deal with when it comes to getting computers in bulk, and business tier support.[/li]
[li]Laptop vs Desktop vs Tablet for corporate/lab environments: Most of these folks will not ever need to move their machine. Any thoughts on why a laptop or tablet would be beneficial in those circumstances?[/li]
[li]Any other thoughts I've not listed?[/li][/ol]

It doesn't have to be super organized or anything, I'm just looking for any thoughts and experience dealing with this or larger environments. I think going with one manufacturer, at least, seems to make sense, but some of you folks may have real world experience that could make me take a pause on that thought.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts, advice, references, etc.



"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

 

[goombawaho]

What are y'all's experiences in dealing with corporate environments and using all same or basically the same hardware and/or software? Is there ANY bad reason to have all or mostly the same?

Same computer model is good for hardware and software updates being identical across multiple machines.
You can test changes to software or hardware much more easily before rolling it out.
Cloning is made easier if you want to use that tool.
Down side is if there is a particular weakness with the model you choose, like a bad video card. Then you have a bunch of machine with a known problem.

I've always liked Dell. Easy to find, download and install updates. Lots of used parts available a few years down the road.

I can't imaging giving anyone a laptop unless they will actually be mobile. Too much of a cost premium to give non-mobile users a laptop. Desktops are cheaper given same performance category.

Sorry to hear you lost your job.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[edfair]

Agree with Goom that identical machines will be beneficial in the near and long term. I've attempted to do that over the last 20 or so years.
Off lease machines are generally a good deal, just understand that there may be more failures over the next couple of years. But if you consider that you can buy spares and still save money it keeps looking good.
I've moved a bunch of off lease Dell stuff over the last 5 years, even some of the "bad cap" machines that I had to make good. Also some HP. My choice would be Dell.
You'll be facing the OS choice and likely application choices also. Machines that were high end XP and Vista are now on the market with 7 installed through refurb. 7 is on extended support for some 4 more years.
My recent experience is with 5 to 7 user accounts. Been a while since I did stuff in a 50+ user environment.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[rclarke250]

Yep, I agree. I would contact several companies and have them submit bids, after giving them a rough estimate of what kind of machine you would be looking for, then you have what the cost is before going to management. Are you doing the install or is the company coming in doing it, what is the warranty, (typically this was 3 years, but has been going to 1 on lower cost machines) What is the cost of buying vs leasing vs buying off lease. Leasing typically includes a maintenance plan for repairs, buying has warranty, but how long and is labor covered and for how long. I know you can get a loaner machine and try it out, put your image on it, then negotiate if they will put your image on from the factory, I know Lenovo will. If dealing with VARS (value added re-sellers) Do not be afraid of haggling back and forth. How long do they plan on keeping the machines? 3 years? 5 years? It is best to get the IT department on cycles, 1 year do the pc's and laptops, next do the printers, next the servers, next the infrastructure, and phone system, alarm upgrades, that sort of thing. This way the company can budget the expenses of IT much better. If it is government even local they have a whole other set of rules they have to abide by. If it is manufacturing, consider safety courses that may need to be done by companies coming in to perform the repairs, I have had to go through courses for Dow, Brunswick,Mead,Alcoa,Meijer,Dana,Johnson Controls,Gerber baby food. For some I was given a badge with in-out privileges, others, it was call when on-site, and be directed from there. For Dow, I had a parts lockers onsite, and a bench in the IT lab for my use, sign in at the guard station, and get a temporary badge for the day. A lot of things to consider, but get a plan of action, and keep good logs of everything. You will get to the point where they same issues will happen, and you refer to your notes and can save time in getting a machine back up, is it hardware,software,will a cold boot fix it. And congrats on the new job.

 

[Nelviticus]

Consider going with laptops; the price difference between them and desktops is much smaller nowadays. The staff here love the fact that they can take everything they've been working on along to a meeting. We also have things set up so that if you're outside our network they will transparently VPN for you, so working from home or elsewhere is very straightforward. Finally, because we're replacing our phone system with Lync (aka Skype for Business) then with office wi-fi you can take your laptop & headset off to any quiet corner and join a meeting or make a call from there.

Desks are set up with a dock, external monitor(s), mouse and keyboard so when you're at your desk you get the ergonomic benefits of a full PC.

Nelviticus

 

[strongm]

>I can't imaging giving anyone a laptop unless they will actually be mobile

I'm with Nelveticus, consider going with laptops. Even if not formally looking to follow agile (or flexible) working practices, this will give the company and employees more flexibility.

As Nelvetica says, laptop prices are pretty competitive these days; in the UK a new 15" Dell Inspiron starts at about £250. Doing a quick like-for-like comparison (to avoid the argument that desktops are more powerful), a Dell laptop versus a similarly specced Dell desktop (matching CPU, HDD, RAM, GPU) has the laptop at only £20 more expensive - £349 versus £329 (and, in fact, the laptop has 2GB more RAM for that price)

 

[Beilstwh]

We have over 5000 employees and most of the users use virtual windows workstations on servers using thin clients to access them. For places like the accounting and IT departments (about 200 people) and upper management we buy the same model of DELL desktops and depending on their job we have made images so that we can quickly setup a new workstation. We also purchase support from dell on all our equipment so if something fails they are quick to fix the problem. Also Dell computers are just solid. That being said we just purchased 1000 Microsoft windows 10 tablets for use by out salesman on the floor of our stores. We also have around 500 IPADS that are in our delivery trucks where they are connected via cellular to the central office. I guess what I am saying is that try to standardize on the same model but use a brand and type that will work best for your specific application. But by having the same model and OS it vastly simplifies maintenance of your machines and users.

Bill
Lead Application Developer
New York State, USA

 

[cdogg]

2. Agree with many of the other comments, particularly Goom's. Generally speaking, I haven't encountered many issues with HP "business" models over the past two years. Most of the stuff coming out these days is pretty rock solid if you stick with Intel-based chipsets and CPUs. So the downside of getting stuck with a defective model is a pretty rare occurrence, at least from Dell or HP's business class.


3. In past employment more than a decade ago, I dealt with Dell systems quite frequently. For the most part, they were well-designed and reliable. Their support, however, was a different story. Back in the late 90s, they created a name for themselves by having world-class support. It was undoubtedly one of the biggest draws to their brand. That degraded over time, however, and by 2003 it would have been hard to tell the difference between Dell and their main competitors (outsourcing to other countries didn't help them). In their defense, the competition wasn't really any better.

For the past 10 years, I've dealt with HP. Though a rocky relationship at times, they matched and possibly exceeded Dell in many areas. Today, however, you really can't go wrong with either HP or Dell. Both in my opinion are at the top of the heap. I've never dealt with Lenovo on the business side, but I've heard horror stories from other business contacts I have in the healthcare industry. I hear their support is average at best, their reliability is below average, and the designs they implement in some of their workstations make it difficult to troubleshoot or repair. On the flipside, I hear they excel in server, storage, and networking solutions. Enterprise operations appears to be their bread & butter.

I agree with another comment above that you should gather estimates from the competition and be willing to choose HP or Dell based on the best price.


4. Historically, laptops were well-known for their compact size to preserve desk real estate (in addition to the obvious mobility advantage). With powerful workstations from Dell and HP the size of a typical home router (not to mention all-in-one desktop options built into the monitor), that real estate advantage is essentially gone. The other point to keep in mind is that laptops are typically harder to service than a workstation which is separate from the monitor. If one becomes in-serviceable, you simply replace it. With a laptop, that means replacing both. Also, you have fewer options when it comes to upgradability (adding memory, swapping GPU's, etc.), though that's a lesser concern. As cheap as workstations are getting these days, it's almost more cost effective to buy a replacement every 4-5 years than it is to spend the time upgrading, especially in larger organizations. There will always be situations that favor both types, and tablets, in my opinion, are becoming more popular for those that are on the move all the time (tablets where I work usually complement the main workstation an employee uses, not replace it).


5. Depending on the size of your organization, you'll want to give serious thought into how software deployments and upgrades are performed, in addition to network security. The larger the organization, the more you'll want to gravitate toward a true enterprise solution. If you provide details on the company's size, industry, and what tools they are currently using, we can better suggest or describe the options that best suit your needs.



-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

[tab][navy]For this site's posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[FI0L]

I have experience of looking after 2000+ Dell's, HP's & Lenovo laptops.

The company originally were using Dell & HP until it came to contracts being renewed.

I have no idea why it was decided to change to Lenovo, perhaps because they were trumpeting the fact that they had the market share, all I know was that the IT engineer's onsite were not consulted as to the quality of existing hardware or backup. Lenovo wasn't the cheapest and their hardware was awful and telephone backup worse.


I also agree with goombawaho to go with just the one make but disagree about concentrating on desktops even though the OP said that "most" would not ever need to move their machine.
Why do I suggest laptops? Personal experience suggests that working practices tend to change and prices can be negotiated depending on the canniness of the company buyer. Suppliers can be amazingly tractable where sales and contracts are concerned. Tablets are still too flimsy and fiddly for heavy-handied clumsies.

If I was the buyer, Dell without any doubt. Yes, we had the odd moan (after all that's an engineer's raison d'etre) about the telephone service given by Dell in India and their overflow in S. Africa, but next to Lenovo and to a much lesser extent HP, Dell were the outright favourites.



Your kindnesses prompt me to announce I wish my grave to be filled before yours.

 

[Beilstwh]

Actually in the last year, Dell moved their support center for Business Customers back to the U.S. To many people were complaining. However if you are a home user, you are still out of luck.

Bill
Lead Application Developer
New York State, USA

 

[cdogg]

Good to know. HP's business tier support has been back in the U.S. for quite some time. Frankly, I can't remember the last time I called and spoke to someone overseas.

 

[FI0L]

A positive decision then. The period in my earlier post was 2012 - 2014.

Your kindnesses prompt me to announce I wish my grave to be filled before yours.

 

[goombawaho]

I don't really agree that desktops and laptops are similar in price, at least in the U.S., but the repairability/upgradability factor tilts the equation even if it were. I know, more flexible if you have laptops, but it's a key decision point.

A lot of companies (larger) have a pool of laptops that can be checked out as needed. Of course, that means laptops are often sitting around doing nothing OR there are none to be given out, causing an instant "crisis".

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[kjv1611]

Thanks for all the various posts and comments. It'll be interesting to see just how impact I'll even be allowed to have. It's a somewhat small company with just over 61 employees (61 have a phone and computer). It's an environmental company carrying out water testing, I think some air testing, as well as engineering solutions for water cleanliness, pollution, and waste water disposal. It's pretty neat, I think. I'd never heard of the company though they've been around longer than my last employer.

Here's some tidbits I've gathered together over time:
The IT Director prefers Dell for a large purchase, so that is good.
For some reason (I've yet to find out nor ask), someone ordered Lenovo desktops for a couple desks that needed replacement very badly about a year or so ago. The machines came with Windows 8.1, and were later upgraded automatically to Windows 10. Since the Win10 upgrade, they've both had several occurrences where Windows would shut everything down and logoff in the middle of their work, not allowing them to save anything. It seems like maybe an update or two was stuck and is now fixed... maybe, but I've not been able to dig far enough into that one to do anything but guess so far. I have other priorities to tackle first.
The head honcho wants everyone to have desktops, or else have a really good reason for anyone to get a laptop instead of desktop. I believe the IT Director and I are on the same page thinking that there are a handful of individuals who do need laptops even if they only take it away from their desk a few times per year. With this small a company, and the type users, it seems far easier to have a handful use laptops. The idea of a spare laptop or two for travel/meetings doesn't seem like it would fly over with anyone involved so far, anyway.
So maybe 10 to 15 of the computers are also connected to lab equipment. A fair portion of the company is basically a chemistry lab (technically a handful of different labs). So at least one or two of those are already newer machines, and were purchased with the equipment, and/or are supported more directly by the scientific equipment companies.
In reality, I imagine we'll be looking at about 30-50 machines to actually replace, given a few lab machines already replaced, at least 2 on this floor (the Lenovos) are pretty new, though sound annoying at times, and I imagine some of the folks on 2nd and 3rd floors may have already been upgraded.
One other caveat: According to the head IT guy, the upgrade discussion has come and gone several times in recent history. So he basically says don't get overly excited just yet.
The idea of getting off-lease or used machines is something I thought of personally over the weekend or during the prior week, I believe. Being our company is pretty small, and some of these machines are so old anyway, it may not be a bad way to go. But will have to get into more conversations on these points to know/do anymore there.
We do have a handful of tablets around, maybe a couple seem to go to decent use, but it seems that the vast majority are just used as desktops anyway, and they've been a headache it seems, b/c they are SO limited in storage (60GB SSDs with Windows 7 installed - after a handful of updates, and nothing much else done on the machines, they start having issues, b/c the drive is full). So far that is solved by removing old Windows Update files.

Well, I've got loads to learn. Right now, they have me focusing on some Excel issues they've basically had to put up with for a few years. Once I am able to clear up some of that and get that calmed down, maybe I'll be able to focus more on this side of things.

Thanks again for all the advice!



"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

 

[shawnzernik]

Q) What are y'all's experiences in dealing with corporate environments and using all same or basically the same hardware and/or software? Is there ANY bad reason to have all or mostly the same?
A) Their are some positives for having all the same 1) if you make an image and something bad happens (virus/HDD failure), you can restore your image and then reseal the windows install. you need to do this before joining the domain, 2) problems will be simular and you'll know the platform your supporting. As for the negatives 1) it's a big cost all at once. 2) one solution does not fit all. 3) i prefer to space purchases out so work loads can be manageable in deploys.

Q) As far as computer manufacturers, can anyone share any real life experiences comparing the likes of Dell, HP, or even some of the smaller or outside companies. I think we're likely leaning towards Dell so far, but I'd like to see what other thoughts are out there as well. In my limited knowledge in the area, I do think Dell seems to be good to deal with when it comes to getting computers in bulk, and business tier support.
A) The manufacture is about support. Make sure you like who your dealing with and that support has been sufficient. But the support plans - Dell = Upgrade Support

Q) Laptop vs Desktop vs Tablet for corporate/lab environments: Most of these folks will not ever need to move their machine. Any thoughts on why a laptop or tablet would be beneficial in those circumstances?
A) I would stick with a Microsoft Windows system if that's what the users are use to. Desktops are more bang for you buck performance wise. Laptops I would get for users that need the mobility.

Q) Any other thoughts I've not listed?
A) Be cautious of 4K monitors. Windows was not designed for high DPI and programs can act funny.

Shawn Zernik
Internetwork Consulting LLC

 

[kjv1611]

Thanks for the thought on 4K monitors, shawnzernik. I doubt anyone will be asking for those so far. The only thing that the head guy wants to look more into right now are touch-screen monitors for some roles. 1080p resolution seems to work really well for most others with large monitors.

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57