Software Licensing for charity

[Mercutio]

Anyone ever dealt with this before? I got "volunteered" to specify and purchase computers for a US 503(1) charitable organization just a moment ago, and unless the discounts for software licensing for charity are a LOT better than the ones for academic software, I don't know whether I'll be able to do it.

I have a budget of $21,000 for 25 PCs, which must include all hardware (yup, monitors, too), Windows XP and, for reasons too stupid to comprehend, MS Office. No other Office package will do. Plus that budget has to pay for user training on the machines.

Academic pricing looks like it'll run to about $8000. Ouch.

 

[honold]

http://www.microsoft.com//licensing/programs/open/opencharity.asp

be resourceful. b e resourceful. b e r e s o u r c e f u l.

i think 'be aggressive' is a better cheer :/

 

[Mercutio]

Oh. And printers. $21000 for 25 PCs, printers, monitors, Windows and some training. That's $300 for the actual computer hardware, nearly as I can tell.

Called CDW. No one has gotten back to me. Their charity hamster must be broken.

 

[Newtun]

FWIW, I occasionally get an E-mail from Onvia.com about free Xerox color printers. I've never checked into it, but it may be worth a few clicks.

www.freecolorprinters.com

 

[Mercutio]

Those a Textronics Phasers, man. You agree to buy the, um, crayons (little under $600 to fill one up).
Finding out about that program actually led me to purchase an 850DP for myself.

 

[mubs]

See Techbargains for a bunch of deals.

There's a closeout on Lexmark printers at Dartek. I believe the limit is 5 rebates per address.

Lexmark Z45SE Printer Deal, May 7
Rebate is now confirmed and on their site!
Dartek is getting more of the Lexmark Z45se color inkjet printer 4800x1200dpi. Price is now Free after $40 rebate for no ink/cable model. Order now before it sells out!

123Inkjets.com sells color compatbile cartridges for $25.95 - 10% coupon SAVE10 = $23.35, (Lexmark 15M0120)

ink4art.com has them for $27.99 - 30% off coupon : Tarpon = $19.59 Exp 5/8
$40 rebate Exp 5/31/03

Budget Dell Desktop with free printer

Dimension 2350 desktop Celeron-2Ghz 128MB DDR Memory/30GB 7200RPM HD, 48x CD, Ethernet, 6months ISP, XP Home desktop $349 shipped free.
Select Desktops, Choose Dimension, Featured Systems under 2350, Customize it on cheapest, Free Palm/Lexmark Printer/or digital camera- Continue, Continue, Add to cart

Lexmark i3 Printer, May 6
TigerDirect has the Lexmark i3 USB Color inkjet printer for a new low price of $29.99 after rebate. $14 shipping. (Thanks Jeff)
$20 rebate Exp 6/30/03

 

[P5-133XL]

Is the requirement for MS Office for the current version? There are some good bargins to be had with surplus MS Office 97's ($80-100)

The other is you have aprox $840 per machine (that includes monitor, printer, XP, Office and computer). I note that Major manufactures get signifigent price breaks on MS Software. With that in mind, I went to Dell and was able to configure a minimum DELL with all the stuff for $807 (including shipping) per machine. I'm not saying it is a good machine, but it will be under budget assuming you are not charging for installing.

Dimension 2350

2.0 GHz Celeron
128MB Ram
17" Monitor
30GB Drive
MS Office 2002 Small Business Edition
XP Home Edition
Dell A940 Printer

 

[Mercutio]

Less software and administrative costs I'm looking at under $350 in total. Dell and Gateway are out. These computers will be assembled by members of the local Steelworker's union and distributed to students entering college by the Urban League of Northwest Indiana.

 

[CougTek]

Dell and Gateway are out. These computers will be assembled by members of the local Steelworker's union...

Why? Is it because the computers have to be assembled by the local union members?

An entire personal computer station, built from reasonably modern spare parts, for under 350U$, is simply impossible. Period. I am able to put up a nice package for around 350U$, but that doesn't include the monitor,printer, speakers and keyboard/mouse. 350U$ will allow you to buy just the box and nothing else.

CPU : Athlon XP 1700+ is currently a no-brainer at 42U$ shipped from Newegg.com

Heatsink : Your favorite Speeze/Spire flavor for less than 15U$ shipped

Motherboard : Can't drop below 70U$ for an all-in-one design, unless you consider VIA's integrated video-joke an acceptable solution. And 70U$ is for the Asus A7N266-VM, but then again, you're alergic to nVidia. Desperate case... I would get a Soltek SL-75MRN-L, based on the nForce 2 for 95U$ shipped.

RAM : 256MB goes for ~30U$, give or take. Double that for 512MB (2x256MB) on an nForce2 platform.

Graphic, audio and LAN onboard.

HDD : 60$ for a 30GB single-year-warranty dog slow Maxtor DM+8 30GB or 71$ for a Western Digital WD400JB with the 3 years warranty. Is it that hard of a choice?

CD-ROM : 20-22$ for a typical 52X standard model.

Case : Around 40U$ for anything with a sufficiently powerful PSU, although nothing at this price will qualify for mission-critical reliability. Add an extra 5-10$ for the optional and never included rear 80mm fan since no 40$ case includes a PSU with dual-fan design.

You can find Logitech PS/2 keyboard and mouse combo for less than 20$ too.

All summed up, around 350U$. Tell me where to shave an extra 120$ for the monitor please. And forget about the printer and speakers.


P.S. : In order to save some cash, could you not just buy a single heavy-duty network printer instead of 25 cheapo printers for each station?

 

[Mercutio]

I ended up with...

Biostar 7vmIQ (s3 graphics, NIC, sound)
XP1800+ retail
40GB SP40
40x Liteon CD-RW
256MB of the ultra-generic stuff
Intel HaM 56k (yup, I hafta shoehorn in a modem, too)
floppy
Premier (yuck!) case w/ 300W PSU
HP DJ3320
USB Cable (costs $1, but the printer doesn't include it. Or, according to some reports, ink cartridges, but that's not my fault).

... all of which works out to $354. I did the math, and the price differential between a 1700 and an 1800 wouldn't help me move to a better motherboard or an actual video card, so 1800 it is.
The competing proposal involved an ECS board (name ends with EM, I'm not motivated enough to look it up), 128MB RAM, a WD hard drive (shit listed by me) and a Duron 1.3, for the same price ($354). There's no way I want my name on a POS like that.

 

[CougTek]

Ok, if you really don't like them :

All from NewEgg.com since I didn't want to break my head to hunt for cents on pricewatch. I added the shipping to the item price when it wasn't shipped free :

Athlon XP 1700+ OEM : 42$
Speeze 5F263B1M3 : 12$
Biostar M7VIQ (KM266) - includes video/audio/LAN: 56$
Apacer 256MB PC2700 CL2.5 : 29$
Samtron 76DF 17" yucky not flat CRT : 99$
Maxtor SnailMax 20GB 5400rpm : 55$
MSI 52X CD-ROM : 22$
Logitech PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 S-48 wheelmouse combo : 18$
Foxconn PC-115 w/ 350W PSU : 34.99$
80mm fan you'll have to buy locally : ~8$
Juster black SP-225 speakers for deaf : 11$
_____________________________________________________
Total cost of computer system even a beggar would be ashamed to own : 386.99$

Ok, I still blow it and there's no printer, but I cannot find better. You could always shave another 13$ by opting for an even worst KL133-based motherboard using only SDRAM. I didn't do that in the above config since I'm not evil enough to propose that to a customer.

 

[CougTek]

Sorry, I was reviewing my post when you posted yours...

 

[CougTek]

Biostar 7vmIQ (s3 graphics, NIC, sound)
XP1800+ retail
40GB SP40
40x Liteon CD-RW
256MB of the ultra-generic stuff
Intel HaM 56k (yup, I hafta shoehorn in a modem, too)
floppy
Premier (yuck!) case w/ 300W PSU
HP DJ3320
USB Cable (costs $1, but the printer doesn't include it. Or, according to some reports, ink cartridges, but that's not my fault).

Where's the monitor in the above?

 

[Mercutio]

Another budget. I set aside $100 for that out of the cost per PC.
You're right that it's exceedingly difficult to make a PC that cheap, but I wouldn't be ashamed to own or to build a machine like that. We probably all would've been envious of that machine in, say, January of last year. The motherboard is the weak point in this, and no amount of finagle-ing within my budget is going to make that part better.

The people who are actually responsible for this mess, by the way, are working from the standpoint that 1.) College kids don't need much of a computer and 2.) it's better than what's on the grant sponsor's desks now.