Third Party Maintenance Timeline : When to Effectively Utilize the Cost Benefits

If you are reading this blog, it would be safe to assume that you are interested in taking advantage of the significant cost savings associated with Third Party Maintenance. However, a key element to maximizing these savings is the timing of when you elect to put your systems underneath support. First, let’s discuss how the equipment life cycle works and how Third Party Maintenance fits into that equation.

When you buy a piece of equipment from the OEM or your local VAR, this equipment will come with 3-5 years of warranty support from the manufacturer. This equipment includes end user devices, networking devices, servers, and storage arrays. During this 3-5 year window, OEM support is the only available way to support your systems. After this initial warranty period is up, the OEM will give you two quotes: One for a refresh to a new solution, and another for a 1 year extension for warranty support.

The price for a 1 year extended warranty from the OEM is always priced astronomically higher than what is fair to the customer. This is because the OEM artificially inflates these prices in order to push you onto their newer solution. The sales representatives from the OEM are compensated on driving the sales of the new solutions, and it is not in their best interest for you to keep your legacy equipment under support. This is when ReluTech’s Third Party Maintenance comes to save the day!

If you have made the decision to keep your existing equipment within your data center environment after the initial warranty, you will want to immediately switch to ReluTech support in order to maximize the cost savings. From the time a piece of equipment comes off its initial warranty, ReluTech’s maintenance will save you 40-80% for every year you choose to put it under support. After you elect to place your systems under our support, we will be able to provide support on the equipment for as long as you want to keep it. Even if the OEM has deemed the equipment “End of Life” and are unable to support it, ReluTech will be able to provide support on these systems!

Here is a quick example: let’s say the OEM is quoting you $25,000 for a 1 year extended support quote for all the systems that are coming off the initial warranty period. Because ReluTech will almost always fall between 40-80% less than what the OEM is quoting you, for this example, we will say our 1 year support quote is a 50% reduction. This would put our support quote at $12,500 for a years’ worth of support. You have plans to keep this equipment around for an additional 5 years after the initial warranty, and then perform a refresh. That will bring us to a total of $62,500 of total savings on renewals alone over the course of 5 years!

Keep in mind ReluTech’s model for providing support is the exact same as the OEM. Although, our support is executed with an emphasis on customer service. With a US-based help desk, a one-call escalation to a platform-specific tier 3-4 engineer, and SLA’s that mirror the OEM’s (24x7x4, 9x5xNBD, etc.), you will get all the same support capabilities that you are used to receiving with a large manufacturer, but with the intimate feeling of dealing with a smaller company.

We are in the business of providing cost-effectiveness so that you can spend your IT budget on… well… something else!

So how is third party maintenance better than OEM support?

Rather than increase your costs by 70%, TPM can lower your costs up to 70%. So, that’s a good start… by the way, the cost of maintenance will not go up year over year for the same level of service. Why would it? TPM providers are not in the business of selling new hardware you don’t need!

Let’s talk about flexibility

OEMs typically have rigid contract terms and do not allow for short term agreements (3 months, 6 months, etc.), whereas TPM providers offer short term contracts with monthly and quarterly options. This flexibility gives customers the ability to add items as they fall off expensive OEM contracts. For those moving to the cloud, flexible short-term contracts also make it easier to decommission and remove assets from maintenance contracts as needed.

Why ReluTech?

We offer our customers a customized solution for their specific needs; spare parts to stock (onsite or offsite), flexible SLAs designed around the customer’s timetable, the ability to support multiple manufacturers, and technicians who have worked on multiple generations of hardware.

Don’t buy equipment when your current environment is running great! Pay for your specific needs and don’t overpay for unnecessary services. Do what’s best for your company, not what’s best for the OEM!

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Source: Gartner Inc. (2021). HOW THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE PROGRAMS ARE REDUCING IT EXPENDITURES. Gartner. https://www.gartner.com/imagesrv/media-products/pdf/XSI/1-5YQUH4Q/XSi_Third_Party_Maintenance.pdf.