Dennen, who chose a 36-month finance lease in January 2000, plans to buy the phone system at the end of the three years. And he isn t worried about the equipment becoming obsolete. Although phone systems advance with time, he doesn t think his business would actually benefit from more sophisticated models. David Arentsen, who analyzes the IT equipment leasing industry for ShareMax, a Parsippany, New Jersey, procurement company that provides a technology platform for sourcing, says finance leases have certain advantages. For example, your Web designer may need a PC with the latest processor, but an employee who simply needs access to databases or word processing applications could get by with an older computer.
Captive lessors are subsidiaries of manufacturing companies.
They own the equipment and rent it out to you. Independent lessors buy equipment from different vendors and then lease it to you. You can go straight to these vendors or deal with a lease broker, who acts as a middleman, arranging leases between customers and leasing providers that can fill their needs. Dennen took his search for a lessor online, where he found OneCore, which provides financial services for entrepreneurs and acts as a leasing broker. The ease of being able to handle everything online appealed to Dennen.