Enterprise - We are; Equipment / Software

Beth looked at the equipment and software that we would need to get a good idea on prices and what not which will later need to be considered when working out our initial start up costs and what not.

Macs
She came across on the Apple website that they offer a leasing equipment programme, where you get the mac(s) that you are wanting and pay set amounts over the course of three years, then at the end you can either pay a one off amount to keep them or you can trade it in and renew it with a newer version. This would be a great thing to consider in order to keep our initial start up costs as low as we can. The end amount that will be paid over the duration of time is just the same as you would if you bought it straight off so it would be an ideal thing to do really.

Another way that we could keep the initial costs as an alternate to taking this would be to use our own Macs to begin with. Obviously in the long run this wouldn't be ideal, but it would save us money to begin with until we do start getting some money coming in to actually cover this expense. This is something to consider when we start making these decisions.

Adobe Suite

When Beth originally looked into the Adobe Suite, she found that they did a similar thing to Apple but were less kind and didn't let you keep the software at the end of the payments. This would have been the most ideal way for us to save on initial start up costs as getting the licensing to ensure we do everything properly and don't end up getting screwed over is one of the most important things for us to get from the off. Even so, they do offer a similar thing now where you can lease the individual programmes from the suite instead. This is still an option, but not as good as the one with leasing the whole thing. Never mind.

There is another options for us to consider with this as well. We could always buy the full suite and licensing for one mac that would be in our studio to begin with, and then ensure that everything we do do under the We are; name is produced on that particular mac, then for other things that we will need to do like send emails and do research can be done on the other/our own macs. This would be a good short term plan as we most probably wouldn't have work come flooding in from the start so we could probably make this work.

Ultimately, for all 4 of the macs that would be in our studio, we could get 3 basic packages of the software, and one premium one - that way buying the 3 basic ones would be a hell of a lot cheaper than buying all premium ones, as we probably wouldn't need to be using what is available on the premium one all of the time, but it would still be there on one of the macs if need be.

The price to buy the basic package is:

The price of the premium package is:

At least if we buy the software packages, it will save us money in the long run when it comes to upgrading to the newer versions as this costs just a fraction of the price than re-buying the whole things.

Office Equipment

She also looked into things like printers and equipment such as desks and chairs to get an idea on the sort of prices that these will cost. Once we decide on the location for our studio and find out more about it we can make some decisions on what we would get for this.