Prior to me coming on-board, the department used to pay $150 a year each for b/w printers(over $3500 a year for all the printers). They come out twice a year to do cleaning, which is something every IT technician should already know how to do. The contract does not include parts and labor for printers with expired warranty. Who are these people kidding? Why the $150 a year contract for each printer then? I think every IT department should be able to service printers like PC's. People really need to be cross-trained. Replacing rollers, fusers, and other parts are really a no brainer on HP LJ, which is all that I have. My newest printer, HP 4200, is 5 years old. It just reached 220,000 pages this month. So far I replaced the separation pad and transfer roller and turned off the 200K page warning. The department has the money but we do not need to buy new printers every other year.
I think printer contracts are rip offs unless you have too many printers and too few people to maintain them along with the computers. We have contacts for business machines that weight 1000's of lbs. like Konica and OCE only. Actually I think we least these machines. -Z.V. ----- Original Message ----- From: David Mazzaccaro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: NT System Admin Issues <ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com> Sent: Fri Apr 11 09:33:03 2008 Subject: printer maintenance contracts? I was wondering how many people subscribe to a printer maintenance contract? We have never done this, and are now being presented w/ a proposal to put all our laser printers under a 3 year contract for toner, maintenance and labor for a monthly fee. Traditionally, if a laser printer craps out, we would just toss it and buy a replacement. This company is trying to tell us they can “save” us money by putting the printers under a contract that basically comes out to $.02/page. But if we look at strictly toner costs alone, the monthly maintenance charge is more than we are spending now on just toner. IIRC, the extra money we would be paying per month for maintenance could just as easily be used to purchase a new printer about every 2 months. Thoughts, comments, suggestions welcome. Thx ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
