Schneider Electric joins the hardware-as-a-service movement

German data center hardware giant Schneider Electric is the latest OEM to jump on the on-demand leasing program hardware, in this case the company’s American Power Conversion line of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS).

The primary beneficiaries are channel partners, but the user comes out ahead as well. This is similar to the on-premises leasing model used by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies, Lenovo, Cisco, and more. Rather than make a massive up-front purchase, you lease the gear and pay monthly for actual use.

The deal is for channel partners to pair APC Smart-UPS solutions with its monitoring and dispatch services to create their own service offering. Schneider says this partnership will allow channel partners to offer more visibility and front-end maintenance across their customers’ dispersed UPS systems.

Customers and channel partners agree to terms and the customer pays on a predictable schedule lowering costs and avoiding surprise charges, a Schneider spokesperson said by mail. “By entering into this contract with the channel partner, these scheduled/predictable payments on the contract allow the customer to shift this from CapEx into OpEx,” she wrote.

UPS as a Service may include:

• APC Smart-UPS single-phase UPS models ranging from 0.75 to 3kVA with preinstalled network management cards for secure, remote monitoring.
• Schneider’s EcoStruxure IT monitoring software synthesizes performance and notification data from the UPS into proactive recommendations to enable secure, wherever-you-go visibility.
• Monitoring and dispatch services that offer 24/7 support to minimize business interruptions.
• Flexible contract length options (three and five years) and terms.

The program is available now.