HAAS and the Small Business Part 1

HAAS is not the well known and tasty avocado, its one of those techie acronyms. HAAS stands for Hardware as a Service. The 'as a service' part implies that the ownership and maintenance shifts from the client to the provider (or their hosting company).

For instance, in the Software as a Service model, or SAAS, the undisputed leader is salesforce.com, the online web based CRM (customer relationship management) tool. Instead of the standard license fee per user, the client gets the software as a service, meaning they pay monthly (say $12 per desktop per month) for access to the software only through the web based portal. Salesforce hosts the software and maintains it with upgrades for the client, including preferences like which depts get access to which customer info.

So how does this apply to Hardware?? Hardware is a necessary evil for all businesses today. The value of hardware declines so quickly (practically out of the box) that there is no benefit of ownership versus financing through a lease, the financing tool of HAAS.

So the first step to HAAS is an ongoing monthly fee to their Managed Services Provider (the company that maintains and supports their network and may even host some services for them like a server off site). This fee is tied into a lease with 2 major exceptions: 1) the lease period is shorter 18 months to 3 years and 2) the client is encouraged to swap out for new to keep the most updated, well maintained computers in their network at all times. In return for these factors, the client sees a minimum 2% lower rate than conventional leasing/financing programs. That typically equates to about $100-150 per month for every $10,000 in hardware.

More to come on the other factors of HAAS.