Dear Cornelio and all,
IMHO Cornelio rasies concerns that cross the three tiers of PC
redistribution (supplier; distributor/refurbisher; recipient). My
comments are an attempt to perhaps offer a different perspective from
each of these tiers.
1) Like many corporations, my employer will often donate computers to
disadvantaged groups including to NFP computer distributor/refurbishers.
In my capacity as the company IT Manager I usually approve (or
otherwise) donations of this type, and generally do not regard these
donations as a charitable contribution for the purposes of taxation...
although were we to donate hundreds of computers (as some other
companies do), then I possibly would seek tax relief to the value of the
donation. The justification for such a course of action would entirely
depend on the value of the donation and any other contributions we are
asked to make.
When considering the altruistic value of corporate donations it is
important to understand that donations rarely include obsolete machines
from any other than a corporate perspective. The machines we donate are
usually Pentium or better industrial-quality workstations and servers,
that for reasons of depreciated book value and for software upgrades
are being replaced - these are not machines ready for the scrap-heap and
will usually provide quite a few years of additional reliable service.
Your comments on computer waste products and environmental legislation
are correct and also apply in Australia, however this generally does not
apply to the types of computers made obsolete by corporate donors for
the aforementioned reasons - we do not need to 'scrap' old computers
because they are quite marketable and can be easily sold at auction for
a good return - further, machines disposed in this manner (at auction)
do not require the considerable time commitment of erasing hard-drives,
proper packing, palletising, and ensuring serviceability (as we do with
donated computers - machines sold at auction are sold on-site as-is
with the purchaser, usually a second-hand computer merchant, signing a
waver and guarantee to erase any/all software found on the computers
(although we do erase anything of a confidential nature beforehand!).
To suggest that donating computers offers business a lucrative potential
is, I'm afraid, simply incorrect - each and every computer we donate
costs our business in excess of $100.00 in time and effort, and being a
business with extensive transport infrastructure, we usually also donate
freight to the recipients address free-of-charge (another +- $50.00 per
machine). Compare this with the cost of dumping and compacting (about
$20.00 per machine) or the potential to sell computers at auction (for
anything up to $5-600.00 for a second-hand server), and rather clearly
our donations are not a lucrative business-operation - they are a very
real overhead, yet an overhead we adopt in our capacity as a socially
responsible business.
2) From the perspective of an NFP distributor/refurbisher, your comment
on the mean temperature of recipient climates is very valid and I would
add to this a range of other factors including relative humidity, dust,
the likelihood of electrical storms, and of course the quality of the
local electricity supply - all aspects traditionally not conclusive to
trouble-free computing - These are important considerations for donor
organisations and often require the supply of harshware computers, line
filters, UPS units and other peripherals to ensure that any computers
donated are suitable for the environment they are going to.
We are perhaps fortunate that few climates are harsher than rural
Australia (where I live). Mean temperatures for this time of year
commonly approach 40 deg C and severe thunderstorms and dust-storms are
fairly commonplace (it is 34 C as I type this message in my
non-air-conditioned home on a stock-standard 4 year-old IBM Aptiva).
Most larger local businesses, my own included which is spread over 200
hectares, have computers located in non air-conditioned and subsequently
quite harsh environments - corporate computers located in these areas
are usually certified 'harshware' and donations of this type of
equipment can offer a very good computing solution for other parts of
the world with similar climates and environments.
Wherever possible I do try to make our redundant harshware computers
available for organisations with a need to distribute this type of
hardware.
3) From a recipients perspective, (and I am also able to wear this 'hat'
having coordinated a recipient campaign for our local Youth Cafe' and
several Australian Telecentre's). Too often the view of recipients is
that of free computers for life, leading to the perspective you have
offered - yet this is not the intent of computer donor organisations.
The intent is to foster interest; acceptance; and to ultimately provide
some basic tools whereby a group or community can decide for themselves
if computing offers any
