New PC-As-A-Service Offering Uses Lenovo, T-Mobile Tech With Emphasis On Affordability For SMBs

‘This is solving for really three things: first and foremost, the affordability for SMBs. Second, reducing complexity around PCs,” he said. “If you’re a small SMB environment, you might not have an IT staff to manage the complexity, particularly in a mobile environment. And last, but certainly not least, we believe in a mobile-first world. Mobility sits at the heart of productivity,’ John Tonthat, CRO at Cellhub, tells CRN.

Timed and priced to meet the surge in demand for new PCs, T-Mobile distributor Cellhub and its reseller partner Lifetime EndPoint Resources are delivering PC-as-a-service with plans to expand the offer throughout the channel.

“When we got together with T-Mobile, we wanted to create a program for the channel in the aggregate, which would allow the channel to participate in a fairly fast-growing market, which is around connected laptops, and do it with the best 5G network around we believe that to be T-Mobile,” John Tonthat, CRO at Cellhub, told CRN.

He said that Hicksville, N.Y.-based Cellhub acts as a distributor for Bellevue, Wash.-based mobile phone carrier T-Mobile, which is known for its magenta color scheme.

The program is launching on Sept. 15 with one partner, but Tonthat said Cellhub hopes to use the allure of Lenovo’s laptop brand, along with the timing of the PC refresh, to expand the program and offer wide channel availability.

“We found one partner who we have a lot of faith and experience in to build the solution. And our goal is to build and replicate this at scale with other channel partners as the program develops,” said Tonthat (pictured above).

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Cellhub chose Lifetime EndPoint Resources, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based solution provider that has been in business for 40 years supporting IT and IT asset management for end users, as its first partner.

Marc Caponegro, VP of sales and business development at Lifetime EndPoint Resources, told CRN this new offering is a chance for the MSP to seize on the PC-buying momentum and turn it into sales.

“We saw an opportunity to partner with who we feel is the top 5G provider in the country to provide a program that allows the end user to procure we’ll configure it. We’ll ship it. We support it, 24/7, 365,” he told CRN. “We also have what we call a white glove service called advanced exchange, where within a few minutes, if we realize that it’s not a software issue or a T-Mobile issue, we’re going to take a process that we have internally, send out a brand new laptop to the end user, bring back the old one.”

Caponegro said the program removes the headaches of PC maintenance, upkeep and networking issues, placing all of those responsibilities into the hands of the solution provider and T-Mobile.

“It’s all coming through us. We’re procuring the product from T-Mobile. We’re doing the configuration. We are doing, I’ll call it the managed service, the 24/7 help desk support, which includes hardware and software, and we’ll manage the advanced exchange,” he said. “So we’re managing the whole process, and it’s going to be on T-Mobile paper.”

CRN has reached out to T-Mobile for comment, but has not yet heard back.

The deal offers customers a Lenovo Thinkpad T14 Gen 6 with Windows 11 installed and Copilot capabilities that operates on T-Mobile’s 5G network for $99 per seat per month for 36 months. That comes with patch management, loss prevention, helpdesk, remote support, and constant connectivity.

Tonthat said one of the challenges of selling PC-as-a-service has been how to navigate the cash risk of owning the goods that are being leased. In this case, he said T-Mobile has stepped up.

“One of the most difficult challenges with PC as a service has been the conversion of CapEx to OpEx,” he told CRN. “So whether or not you use leasing as the underwriting instrument or you use a managed services contract, somebody’s got to hold the paper. Somebody has to then convert it to monthly payments. And most important, somebody has to take the risk, if the end user says, Look, I’m done, I don’t want this anymore.”

Tonthat said of particular value to the SMB is presenting customers with a secure wireless network that their employees can access without the need to rely on public Wi-Fi for highbandwith uploads and downloads.

“This is solving for really three things. First and foremost, the affordability for SMBs. Second, reducing complexity around PCs,” he said. “If you’re a small SMB environment, you might not have an IT staff to manage the complexity, particularly in a mobile environment. And last, but certainly not least, we believe in a mobile first world. Mobility sits at the heart of productivity. And if you’re going to drive towards mobility, you want to be with the best 5G network in the country and T-Mobile has that.”