According to details revealed by James Sherwin-Smith in an Q&A with Leeds Universities Technology Enhanced Learning Manager Gavin Firth on the devices4 blog it has emerged that their pioneering mHealth initiative involving 520 Apple iPhones has also broke new ground in terms of value for money with the University managing to negotiate savings of more than £164,044

According to the figures the University paid O2 £197,600

For 520 items at £380 each

Even allowing for a generous bulk buy discount, one look at the normal retail prices for the components of the package shows this was a great deal as it included:

520 x Apple 3GS worth £217,880

Retail price = £419.00 each x 520

520 x pay as you go SIM Cards with a years unlimited O2 mobile broadband worth at least £93,600

O2 recently stopped offering unlimited mobile broadband and the highest data volume SIM only iPhone package includes only 1GB of data for a whopping £540 per year.

To get a reasonable (low) estimate of this value I’ve used 02’s mobile data dongle plan which is limited to 2GB at £15/month = £180

Whilst this could have become a big liability for the operator (eg. if the students tethered their iphones to their laptops), the potential for this seems to have been limited by WiFi installation across the student residences.

1,560 Mobile Applications worth £50,164

520 sets of 2 x Oxford Handbooks + BNF

Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine @ £34.99
Oxford Handbook of Emergency Medicine @ £34.99
BNF @ £26.49