Renting Macs is a profitable business. Just ask Arne Gallagher, founder of Gold Country Technology, a company that rents computers. Well, not all computers — just Macs.
Gold Country — which supplies trade shows and design shops with leased Macs, and has another business configuring and delivering new Macs to schools — expects to double its 2001 revenue of $1.1 million this year, according to a Sacramento Business Journal article.
The company specializes in both short and long-term rentals. They carry just about everything you could want, from iMacs to flat panel displays; even Cubes.
Gold Country has rented Macs for Macworld expos, QuickTime Live and Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference. They’ve provided them for trade show offerings for companies such as the Gap and even as set decorations for “The Rosie O’Donnell Show.” Gold Country is also renting 20 PowerBooks to a company covering next month’s Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The company needs the Apple laptops to upload digital photographs during the games.
The company has a staff of eight (and growing), all of whom are ex-Apple employees. Gallagher plans to move Gold Country from its 2,000-square-foot El Dorado Hills (CA) site to a new 12,000-square-foot Rocklin building the company is buying, according to the Business Journal. Gold Country will take 7,000 square feet of the building (for a warehouse and its first training center) and sublet the rest.
Even Apple hires Gold Country from time to time. For example, they sometimes have them provide Macs for Apple programs training K-12 teachers during summer seminars. Other customers have included Epson, Adobe and more, as well as the companies sponsoring trade shows such as Seybold.
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