Apple Product Blog from Hardsoft Computers

You may not know but over the last year or two but HardSoft Computers  have actively been making IT leasing available to businesses in Ireland and Scandinavia. This was supported with the launch of our Irish Website www.hardsoft.ie .

To Irish customers the offerings are almost identical to those available in the UK with the exception of the payment is in Euros (arranged via a Dublin office). HardSoft are an Authorised Apple Reseller for Ireland.   If you are interested to see what we can offer you standard online ordering can be done and you can contact us info@hardsoft.ie for all your Apple needs.

For anyone in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands then we can lease Apple Macs to businesses with little issue at all as long as you are an established company with 2 years trading history. The Lease warranty still works the same with us covering costs of collection, repair and return under the terms of your Lease.  Or you can go to your local Apple Store as all Macs have a worldwide warranty. We can have Keyboards changed to suit national requirement  at no extra costso we are well positioned to handle most concerns you might have from sourcing your new Apple kit from a UK Reseller.

European but not in Eire or Scandinavia – then contact sales@hardsoft.co.uk with your nationality and we will research the possibilities of leasing to your country.

We are proud to start this year as an Authorised Apple iPad Reseller . Though we have been offering them since launch this new status means more support from Apple for HardSoft and in real terms better leasing terms to businesses. Discounts on two or more iPads is now available.

An Apple iPad 2 Lease from HardSoft Computers includes a full 3 year warranty and comprehensive insurance cover, which covers you from loss, theft and accidental damage. So whether you drop it on the floor or spill a glass of water on it, you are covered. Arguably the best tablet computer on the market at this current moment in time, with its high-tech specs and features such as iCloud, FaceTime and HD video recording, could the iPad 2 be the future of portable computing?

As an Apple iPad Authorised Reseller, the Apple iPad 2 is available on a Flexi-Lease from HardSoft Computers.The iPad 2 is available on the same Flexi-Lease as all other Apple Mac equipment, with the 2 year RETURN, RETAIN, RENEW option. Just to detail the reality of our flexibility, after 24 months you can RETURN the equipment and cancel the agreement. You can also RENEW into a new lease; we will contact you and offer you the Mac at a similar rental cost. You can RETAIN the equipment at the expiry of the lease for a one off fee of £1 to pay.

HardSoft Computers can also offer the iPad 2 on a shorter lease term. For example, you can take a 1 year lease on the iPad 2, and just return it at the expiry of the lease; it’s as simple as that. With all options available and starting at only £4.55 per week (including warranty and insurance), please give us a call on 01279 718 693. Discounts start for 2 or more units.

At HardSoft we offer more…As STANDARD on all Apple Macs leased from HardSoft we provide a three year warranty inclusive of all parts and labour. If your Mac is faulty we offer, at no cost,  a ‘Collect and Return’  service; whereby our courier will be sent in the next day after reporting a fault and will return this to us for repair. This has an average turnaround back to you of 4-5 days. Also included is telephone support and we offer a remote diagnosis and fault repair service. The normal Apple warranty is just one year and Apple offer ‘AppleCare‘ as an extra option. AppleCare is not as good as our Standard warranty and we can offer even more …

If you need more uptime then we have a Loan Mac option should yours be needed to returned to ourselves for repair. As long as we know by 4pm  we can ship a loan unit for next day delivery. The faulty Apple  Mac will be collected on the same ‘collect & return’ basis as our standard warranty. Alternatively you can collect a loan Mac from us or one of our branches and drop yours off. This option is available at just 80 pence extra per week on a three year lease.

If you want to extend these three year warranty option then we offer FIVE year ‘collect and return’ warranty as well.  The warranty can be transferred to another party should you sell the Mac after the lease finishes.

HardSoft have been established for over 25 years  and have a team of both internal and field engineers and offer enhanced warranty options. All engineers are trained and regularly attend Apple certification courses. (In the first two months of this year we will be taking over 70 Apple exams and numerous Apple technical courses ! ) HardSoft engineers are available for ad-hoc visits for training and support services should you need help.

Also available at extra cost is an all inclusive Insurance against accidental damage and theft  with worldwide cover. A worrying truth is that over

10% of all laptops will be stolen within its lifetime. Our all- inclusive policy carries zero excess to pay and is backed by Aegis Insurance. Claims are handled by ourselves and there is minimal paperwork to process a speedy claim.

Most Business insurance policies have a maximum claim for a computer – for which the higher values on Macs usually exceed.

Please email info@hardsoft.co.uk for our full policy details or how to lease your next Apple Mac with all the advantages not just of a better warranty but also of flexibility , cash flow, tax etc etc etc.

At HardSoft Computers we pride ourselves on the flexibility of our Lease Packages and ability to accommodate the needs of our customers even when those needs aren’t always something your average Lease Company would be comfortable providing.

As is common in the industry finance funders can be uncomfortable leasing more Software than 20% of the total value of an order meaning you can’t always get every user in your office the latest Mac or PC with the most up to date design software.

At HardSoft thanks to the special relationship we share with our funders we can offer at least 50% software leasing for New starts, Sole Traders and Partnerships, allowing you to ensure every one of your new Apple  iMac’s, Servers or PC’s  can be leased with its very own copy of Adobe CS5.5 Design Premium for example. Its £9.50 per week on a three year lease. It’s not just a ‘ boxed ‘ product we can lease but also software licensing as well. Microsoft MOLP licensing is available for any Microsoft software including Windows Server.

To take this further if you are a 3 Year trading company there is a good chance we can offer you a 100% Software lease, so if those Quark xPress and Adobe Licenses just aren’t in the budget for 2012 but a new project dictates you have it call us today about Software leasing and see how we can help.

HardSoft Computers are Approved Resellers of Adobe, Quark, Nemetschek (Vectorworks), Microsoft, Kerio, Apple , Sophos and Avid to name but a few…HardSoft are a one stop shop for the supply and leasing of your new software. Not sure if we provide what you are looking for email ryan@hardsoft.co.uk

Apple’s high spec goliath, the Mac Pro, has not had a spec upgrade now for nigh on 18 months. This has meant some reluctant creative professionals have looked elsewhere in the Apple line up to satisfy a need for speed. As such the 27” iMac with a 3.4GHz i7 processer, is our most popular leased iMac.

Identifying this HardSoft have looked for ways to improve the spec  further above and beyond what else is available on the market. With the advent of 8GB Ram Chips the iMac is now capable of supporting 32GB Ram, adding just £2.95 + VAT per week to our three year flexi- lease….who is missing the Mac Pro now?  These options are not on the Apple Store.

What about an SSD coupled with your traditional hard drive. Hardsoft offer the option of a traditional 512GB SSD for just £5.95 +VAT per week on our 3 year lease. Also available is the Seagate Momentus Hybrid XT drive as a boot option with a 2TB SATA second drive. However that’s not all HardSoft also offer the superfast OWC Mercury Enterprise Pro 6G solid state drives which offer read/write speeds exceeding 500MB/s; the range starts at 50GB for £4.70 + VAT per week going up to 400GB at £15.80 + VAT at per week on  lease. At those prices they aren’t cheap but there is no other SSD or hard drive available on the market that come close to those speeds…… Basically we can offer several alternative paths to the Apple Store to get more speed on the Apple 27”- i7-3.4GHz iMac.

Also available is the Graphics upgrade on the iMac to 2GB. As an Authorized Apple Reseller , HardSoft Computers are happy to lease you an Apple Mac Pro or an i7-3.4GHz iMac, but now you know that it’s not just spec which should guide your choice….Such is the popularity of these bespoke 27” iMacs that we are keeping them as stock and can confidently quote a 3-4 day delivery.

Available as an additional cost option is now an upgrade of our 3 year warranty to include a  ’Loan Apple Mac’ option. The normal HardSoft warranty when leasing an Apple Mac is a three year ‘collect and return’ service that is inclusive of all parts and labour. For customers who cannot afford any downtime for an additional 80 pence per week on a three year lease we will ship a loan Mac for next business day delivery – providing we can identify it as broken before 3pm. We will pick up the faulty Mac at your convenience either when we deliver the loan Mac or we can leave it for a few days should you want to try and transfer any data .

Also available as part of our lease options on Apple Macs is an option for an upgrade of the standard 3 years to Five years with the Loan Mac option at an additional £1.95 per week. This upgraded warranty is transferable should you sell your Apple Mac after the lease has finished. Note that for faulty iMacs we will be providing as a loan unit an Apple 17″ MacBook Pro with 8GB Ram. Loan Apple Macs will come with Office 2011 for Mac and Windows 7 Pro configured under Boot Camp and a 30 day use version of Adobe CS5.5 Design Premium – which is also available to lease incidentally.

If you need further details on this new Mac warranty option when leasing an Apple Mac then please contact us.HardSoft Computers has been established since 1984 and are an Apple Authorised Reseller that specialises in leasing of the entire range of Apple Macs, software and third party options over a three year period with flexible finance upgrades available. Insurance against damage/theft is also available on all Apple Macs.

The AMD 6970 is now available as an optional Graphics option for the Apple Mac Pro from HardSoft. This 2GB graphics card fits a gap between the very very standard AMD 6770 and the expensive Nvidia Quadro 4000 ( £6.40  per week on three year lease) and can be included within the lease of a new Mac Pro. This product comes with 3 years warranty.The AMD 6970 is £2.70 per week plus VAT on a three year lease with HardSoft.

Coming very soon to liven up the Apple Mac Pro ( it was all getting very tired) is the Radeon HD 7970 just launched and it should be available within days.  This 3GB AMD 7970 is available to lease at £4.00 plus VAT per week on a three year flexible lease . AMD  are also preparing to launch a slightly scaled-down model in the form of a Radeon HD 7950 card.

With new Xeon processors from Intel launching in the first quarter of 2012 and AMD’s new graphics card offerings lining up for a January launch, parts do appear to be coming together for a significant upgrade for the Mac Pro, which has not been updated since mid 2010;  and that was a minor CPU change. HardSoft have other products for the Mac pro not available on the Apple website including the ultra fast REVO hybrid hard drives.

What remains to be seen is whether Apple will continue to invest in its professional line of  workstations. If they don’t then we can spec up an Apple  iMac 27″ with a 2GB graphics card, 256GB SSD drive and 32GB Ram if they don’t ! That spec would be £ 24.50 on a three year business lease with FREE Microsoft Office 2010 for Mac.

High interest rates on business overdrafts means leasing has become increasingly attractive… High interest rates on overdraft facilities have contributed to an 8% rise in lease  finance over the last year, according to recent figures. Figures from the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA) for the twelve months to the end of September 2011 show £21bn in lease and asset finance was lent to businesses in the UK, up by 8% on the previous year.

The average interest rates being paid by businesses on their overdrafts was 3.46% in September 2011, the highest rate since Feb 2009, according to data from the Bank of England. The Euro crisis has sent average business overdraft rates shooting up to their highest level in nearly three years, despite stability in the central bank rates. Interest rates were especially difficult for small businesses which often have higher-than-average rates and can be hit with additional costs through arrangement and annual fees, as well as on-going management fees and potential penalty charges.

Banks are still failing to make other types of loan more widely available, making overdrafts the only form of business borrowing available from high street lenders which in turn has led to a greater uptake of leasing and asset finance. 40% of SMEs used leasing in 2010 while the 2011 figure is expected to reach 43%. In 2010, 16.7% of total SME investment was financed by leasing and it is expected to finish 2011 at nearly 19%. Unlike Bank borrowing;  leasing has only minor set up fees and the need for security is often non existant.

HardSoft Computers have over 25 years experience dedicated to leasing computers to small business and have seen an upturn in leasing during recessionary and difficult economic times. HardSoft are both the IT provider (Apple Authorised/HP Preferred) and the Licensed Credit Broker and as such are perfectly positioned to offer that alternative way of financing new Macs, PC’s or Servers..

HardSoft are proud to add the Epson Stylus Pro range of large format printers to the range of creative products available to lease. These fast, flexible 24” or 44” printers give your professional printing even more impact with the addition of the vivid Epson UltraChrome Inks. With accurate, long lasting, life like colour Epson will transform the way you print POS materials, CAD/GIS prints and more. As Epson Partners Hardsoft can now offer the full range of both 5 and 9 colour Epson Stylus Pro printers on an affordable Flexi Lease.

The Epson Stylus Pro 7700 and 7890 use 5 colour ink cartridges, plus black and the Epson MicroPiezo printhead giving improved performance with greater durability. Optimised to work with Epson UltraChrome Ink with Vivid Magenta, it delivers perfectly accurate dots with virtually no misting. It also works with Epson Variable-sized Droplet Technology to produce droplets as small as 3.5 picolitres for perfect smoothness. The 24” Epson Stylus Pro 7700 is at £15.90 plus VAT per week with 3 years warranty. Perfect for eye catching point of sale, signs or accurate line drawings this range of printers suits the CAD user, school or a Sign maker.

Meanwhile the Epson Stylus Pro 9700 and 9890 use nine inks for even better quality and definition. Designed with the print needs of the commercial photography and fine art markets in mind, yet also representing a sound choice for the proofing market, the Stylus Pro 9700 and 9890 offers accurate colour reproduction with unbeatable productivity. The 44” Epson 9700 is at £24.80 plus VAT per week with three years warranty on a business lease.

Optional installation by a trained engineer can be included in the lease and all printers have a full 3 year warranty included. Leasing has various advantages to business users and as well as being great for cash flow offers tax advantages and a HardSoft lease offers options to upgrade as new technology comes along.

HardSoft are Apple Authorised Resellers and all can be bundled up in a tidy lease.

…For the last 18 months now HardSoft Computers have been using a range of Kyocera printers in the office for general day to day printing as well as bulk mailer printing. Why do we use Kyocera ? Well the simple fact is they are so much cheaper to run than other manufacturers as the only consumable is the toner; no sneaky drums to replace here.

Kyocera have long-since recognised the Total cost of Ownership of office based printers to be a major issue. Over a typical printer’s life, thedifference in consumables costs between Kyocera’s printers and any of their competitors can amount to thousands of pounds.  Kyocera are so confident of this fact that they have developed a cost calculator for you to compare any of their range against comparable products from other manufacturers, have a look here.

As an example the based on 5000 prints per month with 20% being colour prints the Kyocera FS-C5400DN works out over £4000 cheaper compared to its HP alternative; the bulk of the saving being toner cost; the actual RRP of the Kyocera is £250 more expensive! The Kyocera FS-C5400DN is £13.80 plus VAT per week on a two year lease.

The entire Kyocera range is available from HardSoft computers on our flexible leasing options with our three favourite models on the website. We also offer an inclusive toner package which takes out the hassle of sourcing toner as well. Toners are delivered to you as you use them.

Please feel free to email our Kyocera specialist steve@hardsoft.co.uk