iPads, lab Macs and school laptops we take
Most of what leaves a UAE campus is iPads. Classroom sets out of charging carts, iPad Airs from a one-to-one programme, iPad Pros from a design or media faculty. Hand them over with their Smart Keyboards, Pencils and cases, because a complete unit grades better. The cart itself is not something we buy.
On the laptop side, school laptops in practice means MacBook Air and MacBook Pro: staff machines, media suite Macs and student loan pools. Lab clear-outs also bring iMacs, Mac minis and the occasional Mac Studio. Apple Watch and department iPhones ride along in the same deal.
If the estate contains hardware outside that list, say so in the enquiry and we will tell you plainly what we can take before anyone books a van. Very large estates, or a group retiring devices across several campuses and a head office at once, are better handled through our corporate IT fleet page.
Purchase orders, quotations and invoicing
Institutions cannot be paid the way a walk-in customer is, so the paperwork comes first. We issue a written quotation in the institution's legal name, itemised by model line, which procurement can route for approval or attach directly to a purchase order.
When the PO comes back, collection is booked against it. The invoice quotes your PO number and lists devices by model and quantity, with serial numbers where the finance office needs them to retire assets from the fixed register. Settlement is by bank transfer to the institution's account: one transfer, one invoice, however many collections it took.
Quotations are dated rather than open-ended, because used prices move. If your approval cycle is long, tell us at enquiry stage and we will re-confirm the figures when the sign-off lands instead of sending a stale number into a committee meeting.
Booking collection around the academic calendar
Nothing gets collected in exam week, and a fleet still in use on the last day of term cannot be inspected in April. Campus buybacks are almost always scheduled for the end of an academic year, a half-term shutdown, or the summer window when the labs are empty and IT is doing the refresh anyway.
Tell us the date the devices are genuinely free of teaching use. We quote against that date and re-confirm on inspection, and if only part of the estate comes out at once we collect in stages. A primary set can go in June while the secondary carts follow in August, under one quotation.
Collection is free anywhere in the UAE, from Abu Dhabi and Sharjah to Al Ain and Ras Al Khaimah. The van comes to campus, so nobody on your side drives a trolley of iPads down Sheikh Zayed Road.
Student data, MDM and Apple School Manager
Education fleets carry the most sensitive data we handle: student names, photographs, coursework, class rosters and sometimes parent contact details. That raises the bar from doing the job to proving it was done, which is why each serial gets its own sanitisation record rather than one line covering the batch.
The critical step on your side is release, not erasure. An iPad assigned to a Jamf, Mosyle or similar server through Apple School Manager will demand that server again the moment it is set up. Erasing it changes nothing, because the assignment is held in your school's account rather than on the hardware. A cart wiped in June will still ask for the MDM in September. Unassign the devices, release them from the organisation, and clear Managed Apple ID sign-ins and Activation Lock.
Managed Apple IDs deserve a separate look. Coursework synced to a student account does not live on the device at all, so the account policy is a decision for your data protection lead, not a collection-week job.
If the term-end refresh is landing on one IT person, walk us through the setup on the call. We will point you at the right console so the batch does not have to come back twice.
Counting, grading and what campus wear costs
Send the list first. Model, generation, storage, quantity per line and an honest condition split. One hundred working, twenty cracked and five dead is far more useful than 'around 125 iPads, mostly fine'.
Campus hardware ages differently to office hardware. Screens crack in corridors, charging ports wear out after four years of daily use, and the asset tag leaves residue when it comes off. None of that stops us buying. It moves the per-unit number, not the answer.
Two things are worth flagging on your list. Laser engraving of the school name cannot be removed and does reduce resale value, so those units are priced separately instead of dragging the batch down to the lowest grade. The same goes for swollen batteries, non-Apple replacement screens and devices that no longer charge.
Expect the asset register and the physical count to disagree, because they usually do. Grading happens on site with your IT contact present, what is handed over goes onto a counted collection sheet, and the invoice follows that sheet, not the spreadsheet you started with.