Microsoft drops minimum finance level

Microsoft Australia will reduce the minimum purchase for its finance from $15,000 to $3000 from October 9 in response to pressure from local reseller partners.

As reported in CRN, the software giant launched the Finance program in March this year, partnering with financier De Lage Landen to enable small and medium business to buy IT hardware, software and services on credit.

Under the existing program, resellers can offer their customers the option to finance their purchases for up to 36 months, at an interest rate of up to around 14 percent, said Chip Lang, worldwide program manager for Microsoft Financing.

Lang said while there was plenty of financing available for IT hardware, banks and finance companies were generally not interesting in financing the software and services part of an IT rollout.

Under the finance program, buyers can finance any technology purchase as long as Microsoft products are on the invoice.

Pip Marlow, director of SMB and partners at Microsoft Australia, said 90 percent of the 436 US-based Microsoft partners indicated that they would do at least one more deal annually if finance was offered to them.

Further, one-third of partners surveyed said they lose 20 percent of small business opportunities due to lack of finance.

One local Microsoft partner requesting changes to finance terms was NSW-based Phrixus Technologies.

Alexander Day, business development manager at Phrixus, said the reseller conducted look at its quotes over a 12 month period, finding that 20 percent of clients indicated that a lack of finance was an issue when it came to purchasing technology.

“We felt that $15,000 was probably a little high for a small business to go forward,” Day said. The average cost for a small business to purchase its first server was between $6000 and $20,000, Day said.