Stone goes mental for rental at BETT

PC builder launches Rent-a-PC scheme for hard-up schools

PC builder Stone has launched what it claims is the first long-term PC rental scheme for the UK education sector.

Unveiled today at this year's BETT show, Stone's Rent-a-PC scheme is designed to allow schools and colleges to invest in new IT hardware via their revenue rather than capital budgets.

Despite their funding woes, roughly half of primary schools and a third of secondary schools said they would maintain or hike ICT investment in this school year, according to recent research by the British Educational Suppliers Association.

Chief executive James Bird said: "The education sector is under increasing pressure to reduce expenditure but simultaneously increase access to ICT in the classroom. We believe that the Rent-a-PC scheme provides a viable solution to the challenges schools and colleges shall be facing in 2012."

Stone claimed the scheme offers schools a number of benefits, including allowing them speedier access to the latest technology, rather than having to conform to the traditional five-year refresh cycle.

The package also allows schools to scale up and down to meet their requirements and – as a rental offering – there is no need for it to be signed off by the local education authority.

Bird added: "Our offerings encompass a ‘partial' support package, scaling all the way up to a full remote or onsite managed service. Our support operates on a prescriptive basis, reducing the complexity of deploying support resource and guaranteeing a clear statement of what service levels educational institutions can expect."