What Is Device As A Service And When Does It Work Best?

Computer technology is a particularly broad spectrum, and a cursory glance at our website will reveal a vast range of different types of devices useful for everything from checking emails to creating complex computer animations.

The reason for this is that there is a computer for every type of user; some people want to build a computer and upgrade it themselves, whilst others want to pay a reasonable price for a reasonable laptop they can use for a few years before replacing.

Others still would rather avoid the complications of having to organise a procurement process and would rather use a Device as a Service (DaaS) instead to streamline their access to the most effective equipment for their business.

Why Choose DaaS For Your Business?

Whilst many IT companies are aware of software as a service (SaaS), DaaS provides the same flexibility and long-term benefits but for hardware as well, and can be ideal for businesses that want to hit the ground running and avoid disruption caused by obsolete hardware.

The concept is relatively new in this form but has its origins in one particularly ambitious marketing campaign.

Never Obsolete

The now-discontinued hardware brand eMachines was founded in 1998 during a particularly transformative period for IT in business.

The runaway success of Windows 95 and the rapid evolution of the internet into a core component of many businesses meant that a lot of people and businesses were looking into using computers.

Whilst it is possible to get laptops and tablets that are suited for business use at affordable prices today, this was not always the case in the 1990s, and the rapid evolution of computer technology made businesses wary of buying a group of computers that would quickly need replacing.

The pitch for eMachines was to make it far simpler and far cheaper to upgrade with a campaign known as “Never Obsolete”.

Part of the pitch was that the computers were much cheaper than the majority of entry-level machines on the market at the time, but they could also be upgraded for a fraction of the original cost by sending the computer back to eMachines.

In practice, it was a form of DaaS service; people who subscribed to eMachines Network for 24 months would be able to pay a nominal fee to receive the latest version of the machine that they initially paid for.

Usually, this would involve a CPU upgrade, but could include a motherboard and memory expansion depending on when it was claimed. Typically the optical drive and hard drive were left untouched, but eMachines recommended backing up data regardless.

Whilst an ambitious service at the time, it was one of many victims of the bursting of the dot-com bubble, which meant that the company was losing a lot more money on its multitude of free computers that were “Never Obsolete”.

Once the company was purchased by Gateway 2000 and later Acer, the Never Obsolete campaign was discontinued, but it also served as a template for how DaaS can work effectively.

A good DaaS is simple, clear, effective and removes all of the hassle, concern and issues with buying a new computer or device, and modern implementations of the concept have taken these lessons to heart.