It has been almost a month since the government launched its home computing initiative. The government's view, shared by partners Intel and Microsoft, is that this is a good way to get low-income earners to take receipt of a computer. You do a salary sacrifice (thus getting the Inland Revenue to contribute a bit) and lease a computer for as little as a fiver a week.
That's the "straight" story, if you like - except that a number of people don't. It has come under fire for two reasons. Firstly, if you add up all the fivers that you're likely to pay, it amounts to much more than you would expect to pay for a reasonably low-spec computer. Secondly, the partner companies - the people actually providing the kit - appear to be more interested in the larger orders than in the: "There are five of us here - can we buy a computer each?" requests from smaller businesses.
These are strange objections to come from the business community, which is normally financially astute. Let's take the first: under the leasing scheme, you would pay more than the purchase price. Suppose a customer asks you for financial help in buying a product. If you're an estate agent, you'll probably help find a mortgage. If you're a car dealer, you might refer someone to your financial-services arm. One thing is certain: in the majority of cases, if the customer adds up the individual payments, they will discover the total is more than the recommended retail price.
Everyone accepts that funding costs money - except when something is called a "home computing initiative". Then, curiously, the complaints roll in.
The second objection is that smaller companies are left out of the equation. This is true, up to a point. There are certainly partners who have focused on larger businesses, who aren't geared to serving the small customer and who - surprise, surprise - aren't ready to retool their entire business around a single scheme. There are others (Dell has made a lot of noise about this) who are happy to supply a computer to anyone through the scheme.
The more you think about it, the more baffling some of the complaints are. "It's a bad deal," said one correspondent to these pages, on the grounds that it would be cheaper to pay cash for a new computer. Indeed it would, but this is aimed at people who don't have the cash and who don't want to save for two years.
Sure, you have to shop around to find the right deal - and if you're happy with HCI, you still need to shop around for the right dealer - but isn't all this shopping around supposed to be second nature to business people?
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