Carol: Hi, Kelly Hartz, principal consultant at MIS Solutions, is with me today to talk about old laptops and workstations. Specifically, what are you supposed to do with them? Welcome, Kelly.
Kelly: Thanks for having me.
Carol: So Kelly, why do we, an IT provider, need to know what a client’s intentions are with their old devices? Why do we care?
Kelly: Appreciate you asking. We want to know from our clients, please specify if their new computer is an addition to your fleet or a replacement computer for an old device that you might want to get rid of.
MIS adds our security tools and our management tools to every device. So ideally, our tools should be removed from retired computers, which directly impacts the quantities on both your monthly invoice, as well as your monthly inventory.
Carol: Okay. So what should a client do with a decommissioned computer?
Kelly: Yeah, there’s many options. First thing, remove the MIS tools, which are our remote monitoring and management tool, as well as our security tools. Then, wipe the device of any data that is on the hard drive and recycle it.
Carol: Okay. Are there any circumstances, Kelly, where a client should hang on to any old computers?
Kelly: Yes. If a device is younger than, say, 3 to 4 years old, it’s generally healthy. Now, assuming that the operating system is also supported, I’m going to stop there, because Windows 10 is going to be end-of-life by October 14th of 2025. So, we want to make sure that our operating systems are supported, processors and our RAM are strong. If those are the conditions, then we recommend repurposing the PC.
By repurposing, I mean assign it to another employee on your team, keep it as a spare. If coffee gets spilled or one fails suddenly, you want to have a spare around. You can also donate it to a school or a charity, or some people like to gift it to their employees or household members.
Carol: What about saving for spare parts? Is that recommended?
Kelly: We don’t recommend saving computers in the closet for spare parts. That’s going to be more trouble than it is worth. Our key takeaway here today is that when ordering a new PC through MIS, please specify if it’s an addition to your fleet or a replacement and what you want MIS to do with the older PC.
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