Recycled Acer Olympics ICT fleet saves schools estimated £1.5m

More than 500 schools and colleges have now purchased discounted Acer computer equipment used during the Olympic Games, saving themselves an estimated £1.5m in total, V3 has learned.

Econocom is working with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) to manage the re-assignment of the Acer ICT fleet, which consisted of 10,000 PCs, 2,000 laptops, 1,000 servers and 1,800 touchscreens.

According to Econocom UK country manager, Chris Labrey, much of the IT equipment has now been distributed to the education sector. All laptops and PCs have already been assigned.

Servers are still being sold for a cost of £272, reduced from £2,800. There are now 150 servers left, although they are selling fast with 88 having been sold this week.

Most of the servers have drives that are 146GB but many have 300GB. The servers have become available later that the other Olympics' IT equipment.

A number of touchscreens are also still available for a cost of £110, reduced from their list price of £495.

"The Econocom team is proud to be managing such an initiative which ensures the benefits of the Olympic legacy are spread across the whole country," Labrey told V3.

Labrey said he expects more equipment to soon be released, including interactive smartboards, HD projectors and HD cameras.

Teachers have been taking to Twitter to share their enthusiasm for the initiatives, such as Chris Goodrich, director of IT services at The Mountbatten School in Hampshire.

"Just ordered some ex-Olympic servers from Chris Labrey. They are an absolute steal for schools. A new processor costs more than the server!" he said.

In related news, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has released a report on the anticipated final cost of the Olympic Games. According to the report, the Games cost £8.9bn, which was $377m cheaper than was originally expected.

V3 contacted the department to find out how much Olympics IT had cost overall, but was told these figures will not be available.