If you manage a laptop or desktop fleet, you’ve probably had this conversation with your finance team: “It’s still under warranty, why does it need an AMC too?” The honest answer is that a manufacturer’s warranty and an Annual Maintenance Contract cover two different kinds of problems — and mixing them up is how fleets end up with unplanned downtime.
What a manufacturer’s warranty actually covers
A manufacturer’s warranty covers manufacturing defects — a fault that was there when the machine left the factory. If a component fails because of how it was built, the warranty covers it. What it doesn’t cover is wear-and-tear, accidental damage, or the kind of slow performance degradation that comes from dust, heat, or heavy daily use. Claiming it usually means shipping the unit out and waiting, which is fine for one laptop but not practical for a fleet.
What an AMC adds on top
An AMC (Annual Maintenance Contract) is built around prevention, not just repair. Instead of waiting for a machine to fail, scheduled preventive checks catch problems — a failing fan, a battery on its way out, a hard drive throwing early errors — before they turn into downtime. Priority repair slots mean your fleet doesn’t sit in a general queue behind walk-in customers, and having one point of contact means nobody on your team has to figure out who to call for what.
Which one do you actually need?
In practice: keep the manufacturer’s warranty for what it’s good at — genuine defects on newer machines — and use an AMC to cover everything a warranty was never designed to handle: routine wear, preventive maintenance, and fast turnaround when something does go wrong. For an office fleet of any size, the two aren’t competing options; the AMC is what keeps a warranty from being the only thing standing between you and an unplanned repair bill.
If you’re weighing up whether your current fleet needs an AMC, our AMC & Support page covers what’s included, or you can get in touch and we’ll take a look at what you’re working with.