Northamptonshire Police is the first organisation to use VAR’s online HTI offering

VAR RedPC is braced for a frantic 2008 after taking the wraps off the online platform of its Home Computing Initiative (HCI) alternative programme.

RedPC was the first victim to go into liquidation after the chancellor scrapped HCI last year. But the company fought back by launching its own scheme, the Home Training Initiative (HTI).

Its latest online tool, the Alchemy platform, creates an account for each customer that can then be accessed by individual employees to purchase their chosen machine.

Martin Prescott, managing director of RedPC, said: “Everyone was nervous after the chancellor did what he did. But our HTI scheme is going from strength to strength and we have local authorities, police forces and NHS Trusts on board. The private sector is still reticent to get involved, but I’m sure it will come round.”

Prescott said the firm is also seeing a strong take up of high-spec machines through the site as staff make the most of the cost savings.

“With Alchemy up and running, it also gives us scalability,” he said. “All our fulfilment is being carried out through a third party, but the platform means we can turn on a scheme within 10 minutes and cater for companies from a one-man band to a Top 100 company.”

He said RedPC is also looking for partners willing to syndicate the platform to use with their customers.

“There is far too much business out there for just one firm. We are not greedy and are willing to share with other IT suppliers,” he said.

One of the first organisations to make use of the HTI scheme is Northamptonshire Police.

Karen Jarvis, human resources project officer at Northamptonshire Police, said: “We are the first police organisation to take part in this scheme. It was launched on 5 November and within a few weeks we had about 20 orders.”