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Many people have started getting scared about Win98 no longer being supported, Win2K is next.

Let me ask you, when was the last time you sent a request to Microsoft for Win95/98 support? Does it matter if Microsoft no longer brings out new Win98 patches?

I think Win98 is at the point that you don't need manufacturer support as everynoe else has already answered the major questions and end user suport is found everywhere, like here on TR.

As fro new peripherals not having drivers, that's a different issue but pretty much everything is OK on Win98 and you say your budget is limited so I can't see you upgrding peripherals too much.

If you upgrade what are your choices? WinXP Pro AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH!! Although MUCH better than XP Home, it is still a new and buggy OS. With Win2K support slated for expiry, they keep changing that date, you will inevitably be in the same situation next year or the year after.

Leasing, the company that benefits from leasing is the leasing company not the lessor, I know leasing quite well.

In the long run, even if you get an EXCELLENT lease contract you will end up paying 5% more after all is said and done and as you said, NEVER own your equipment, unless you pay a hefty and unreasonable buyout, just like a car (everyone gets sucked into that one).

Why not weigh the costs of upgrading cetain machines this year, and a few more next year as they are phased out. Even a enw MOBO and processor swap with a licenced OS upgrade will be cheaper and if it lasts another year before needing replacement, great that's another year for a few hundred bucks.

If you are THAT interested in upgrading as needed, leasing will cost you a fortune as you constantly replace out of date machine with new ones and renog your lease.

There is a reason leasing is a good business to be in, mainly because people don't REALLY understand lease obligations and long term costs and simply BELIEVE it's better. I operate a leasing company along with a partner that handles equipment leasing for touring bands, takl about a cash crop. We have THE lowest industry rates, NO buyout at all and still make a heap of dough.

Save your money, upgrade yourself. You don't really need to REAPLACE each machine as many can be upgraded.

Seems to me that the biggest concern you have is cost. A common issue for business today.

Perhaps the solution lies in a fresh look at your needs. Not the technical needs, but the business needs. Reconsider what your department does independent of the technology. Define these as requirements and prioritize them. Now consider how technology can best support these requirements. Do you need a PC for every individual, or will a thin or zero client solution work just as well? Is individual email a requirement or simply a tradition? Is Internet access supporting your business requirements? How is local printing supporting your business?

While you are exploring needs, you may want to reconsider your choice of OS and applications as well. You may find Linux and OpenOffice or StarOffice a suitable and lower cost alternative.

Consider your other technology costs as well. If the phones are a departmental managed expense, do you simply weigh it an pay it each month? Do you need a departmental fax line and fax machine, or can a service do this for you? How do you handle your phone conferences and how much are these costing? Are your cell phones, pagers, PDAs meeting your needs and have you gotten the best deals from the hundreds of plans available?

Reviewing or establishing links between business requirements and technical solutions may have a pleasant and unexpected side effect. When you can show the linkage, you may find your technology budget boosted to meet your business objectives!

Own Question. While Leasing is cheaper in the short term it always works out far more expensive in the long run and with the added draw back that you never actually own the equipment.

Now this may not be an issue for you or you're company but you also have to consider DATA security how do you plan on securing all that DATA when you send back the lease computer?

Remember there is no positive way of cleaning a HDD other than replacing it and that becomes self defeting on lease units but you at least keep the HDD with their DATA intact and ready for disposal/destruction.

But then again this may not be of any importance to you're company but it is something that you have to consider and speaking from experience you don't want the expences of Court action for leaked DATA if that was to happen it would blow you're budget out the window for years to come and you would still have no computers to work with. That of course doesn't take into account all the time that you will have to waste in presenting evidence for anything like this. I was on the stand for 1 week giving evidence and it was not a happy experience and it is something that I would not wish upon anyone.

Are there any other costs you can cut in order to buy rather than lease?

Moving to Linux for some (not all) machines might free up some cash.

Have you thought about refurbished machines? Do you need the latest and greatest P4 2.8 Ghz blah blah blah? We have tiered our servers. We determined which ones carry the heaviest loads and use the best equipment for them. Same with the clients. The Admin that just does word processing, PPTs and email gets the crappy machine. It does not affect her productivity to have the P3 450Mhz with 256 MB RAM machine because of what she does, but the developer has the juiced machine.

DKS

I think that your accountant is the one who has to answer that question. If you look at just dollars, buying something is always cheaper than leasing it, but the benefits of leasing are found in the tax laws, the write-off and amortization options, and so on. Moreover, software and hardware are "accounted for" differently. So ask your accountant for an opinion in that regard.

On the issue of different operating systems, if it's a problem, don't do it. I let the operating system of choice (and I only choose one) be the driving factor in helping me determine which computers to replace. We're a Windows 2000 Professional office - on all of the machines - and when we decided to make that upgrade from Windows 95 (we skipped Windows 98, for the most part), we replaced the machines accordingly. And it wasn't really that bad. We had to replace about 30% of them, upgrade (mostly memory and hard drives) about 30% of them, and the remaining were already compatible. I suppose it helps that I never buy a computer with a preloaded operating system. (Or any other software, for that matter.) I treat hardware purchases and software purchases, including the operating system, separately.