Buying computer hardware and software can leave your pocketbook pretty bare, but there's an outlet on campus to help ease the pain.
To help students who need to bargain shop, the MSU Computer Store, located in the Computer Center next to the Administration Building, offers hardware and software at discounted prices for MSU students and faculty and staff members.
Allan Evans, Computer Store sales associate and electrical engineering junior, said everything the store sells is new.
"We have Dell, Apple, Compaq, IBM, Gateway and Toshiba" as far as computers go, he said, adding the store carries both desktop and laptop computers.
Since 2001, incoming freshmen are required to have an Internet-ready computer, able to connect to MSU's Ethernet. The necessary network cards also are available at the store.
Rivard said his sales associates make buying a computer an easy process.
"Kids come in saying, 'Do I need a huge hard drive, what do I need?,'" Rivard said. "They say, 'Well what are you going to do with it?' They can better guide them to what size and type of machine they should be looking at.
"People don't even know these services are available."
Popular software includes Microsoft Office XP, Adobe products such as Photoshop and Acrobat and Norton antivirus products. Evans said Microsoft Office XP is the most popular.
"We have Microsoft Office XP for $60," Computer Store manager Ron Rivard said. "MS Office costs the average consumer $400 to $500."
In hardware, Evans said the store sells equipment such as printers, hard drives and memory cards.
"Anything you can get at a (retail) computer store, you can get from us," he said.
One piece of MSU-related software the Computer Store carries is called eTools. The program sets up all the necessities students have when adjusting their computers to live on campus.
The program works to install Internet connections and special MSU-related bookmarks to online resources and setup e-mail and a student's personal Web space.
Rivard said the program costs $20 and is worth the money.
"You put it in your computer and it leads you through this process that sets up your machines," he said. "The other option is 20 pages worth of handouts. It saves people lots of time.
"I'll say 90 percent of the students buying computers from us this summer are buying this program."
But the MSU Computer Store isn't the only place in East Lansing that sells computer goods at discounted prices.
Student Book Store, 421 E. Grand River Ave., carries a smaller selection of software, but also offers discounted prices.
Both stores are able to offer a discount because software can be licensed as educational, and then sold to students and faculty members at a lower price.
"You could save quite a bit of money with Microsoft Office," said Larry Irish, who oversees the software department at SBS. "We sell a lot at the end of semester and around Christmas time."
One product, Irish says, that is a big value is the AutoCAD program, one he said he sells a lot of to the MSU Department of Human Environment and Design for computer-assisted drafting.
"It can run as much as $3,000," Irish said. Student Book Store's price for Autodesk AutoCAD LT is $149; the Computer Store sells it for $125.
