Info Products to hit the TCO trail

Dutch reseller sets up the first dedicated TCO division, offering corporates active upgrade leasing.

Info Products is understood to be the first UK reseller to set up aorporates active upgrade leasing. total cost of ownership (TCO) business division, offering hardware, software, support and maintenance in the form of an active upgrade lease.

Channel sources have speculated that the reseller is under pressure from US strategic partner Entex to sell the concept of total cost of ownership.

'It has been training the whole salesforce to evangelise on total cost of ownership,' one source claimed.

It is understood that Info Products, in conjunction with a specialist IT leasing company, will offer large corporates an active upgrade path.

Customers will pay a per-year, per-seat fee for automatic upgrades and support where appropriate. Staff at Info Products were unavailable for comment.

Increasingly expensive upgrade requirements and a return to centralised control in IT purchasing departments are the forces behind the new trend in total cost of ownership. Several vendors, including Digital, Compaq, IBM and Hewlett Packard, now offer leasing packages, offering corporates financing to manage IT packages. IDC reported that channel take-up of these products was expected to increase to 80 per cent by 2000, up from 50 per cent in 1992.

Resellers are split in their approach to TCO as a business strategy.

One claimed it was 'a very effective differentiator because it significantly reduced capital investment for corporates'.

But another claimed it was not sufficiently popular with corporates to justify setting up a dedicated business division. 'Customers don't tend to go for TCO in a big way. It seems a large step to set up a whole business division just to offer this facility,' he said.