Apple Discontinuing Boxed Software for Educational Resellers

MacRumors · Sep 29, 2011

Apple is continuing its war on boxes. In July, Apple ended physical distribution to Apple Retail Stores and resellers of a number of software titles that it sells digitally on the Mac App Store. Now, ZDNet reports the company is discontinuing physical boxed software to educational resellers too:

Apple confirmed today that, with limited exception, they will cease to ship boxed software to campus resellers. This includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife, iWork, Apple Remote Desktop, and Aperture, among others. We have a limited supply of copies of each in stock in the store, so consider this a "last call" for anyone who would like a hard copy before they are gone. Particularly anyone who would like to get Snow Leopard, as we just received our final shipment of that version of the OS.

The only products that will remain as boxed software offerings are Logic Express and Logic Studio. For information on Apple Volume Purchasing Program for software, we've posted a page on our website that describes how departmental users can take advantage of purchasing volume licensing.

This is especially significant because Apple doesn't offer educational discounts on the Mac App Store like it does through educational resellers and the Apple Online Store. The educational discount on Apple software is typically 10% off.

Article Link: Apple Discontinuing Boxed Software for Educational Resellers

jayman99 · Sep 29, 2011

Yes! No more boxes! Educational institutions should get used to the whole download license method. Who want's to be in charge of keeping an inventory of all the software for a department? That was a pain when I had to do that in College in our Film/Video Department. Going digital will be beneficial to everyone. Especially where most departments upgrade every year or two, think of all that waste, storage space, inventory cataloging!

nagromme · Sep 29, 2011

And theres still a discount, in the sense that Apple has dropped their prices along with the move to downloading. So although edu customers arent paying any less than the public now, theyre still paying less than they used to pay for edu-discounted boxed software.

(I havent done the math on everything they sell, but if the discount was 10%, I cant think of a download Apple hasnt priced less than 10% lower than the previous boxed version. On the whole, then, edu costs for Apple software have dropped.)

C00rDiNaT0r · Sep 29, 2011

Not sure how EDU discounts work for software.. I don't think it is always the same for all schools, for both students and departmental purchases. Here is an example:

https://www.bookstores.nyu.edu/computer.store/dept.licenses.prices.html

$15 for each volume license, 20 minimum. Looks like it costs more from Apple at $40 each:

http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/product/D5983Z/A

adcx64 · Sep 29, 2011

Digital download is the future!

goodcow · Sep 29, 2011

jayman99 said:
Yes! No more boxes! Educational institutions should get used to the whole download license method. Who want's to be in charge of keeping an inventory of all the software for a department? That was a pain when I had to do that in College in our Film/Video Department. Going digital will be beneficial to everyone. Especially where most departments upgrade every year or two, think of all that waste, storage space, inventory cataloging!

As the person who has mostly been in charge of getting all the Apple quotes on my college campus for years now, the Mac App Store is absolute crap.

First of all, there's no tax exempt status at the moment. Also, if your order quantity is under 20, it's a huge pain in the ass.

The Art dept. needed a license for Apple Remote Desktop last month. The boxed copy was $400 or so, I believe, whereas the MAS download was $80.

First we had to have IT create an E-Mail address for the Art Dept's iTunes account, then create an Apple ID. Then I had to go over there with a college credit card and purchase it for them, then de-link the credit card from that Apple ID. Then we had to wait for the receipt to generate, have it forwarded to us and then forward it to an Apple E-Mail address for a refund for the tax, as we're a public college and tax exempt. Then Apple has to process our refund request and then sends a PAPER CHECK of the tax refund.

Meanwhile, if the Art Dept. wants a second copy of Apple Remote Desktop, can I just buy them another license? Nope. I have to create a second Apple ID for them. This process continues for any additional licenses, unless you get 20 or more in a single order, where then you just get voucher codes to redeem like iTunes gift cards.

This is the most poorly designed, non-corporate and Education focused thing I've seen them do in a long time.

All they needed to do was copy the way Edu purchases are done for iOS, but they didn't.

guzhogi · Sep 29, 2011

goodcow said:
As the person who has mostly been in charge of getting all the Apple quotes on my college campus for years now, the Mac App Store is absolute crap.

First of all, there's no tax exempt status at the moment. Also, if your order quantity is under 20, it's a huge pain in the ass.

The Art dept. needed a license for Apple Remote Desktop last month. The boxed copy was $400 or so, I believe, whereas the MAS download was $80.

First we had to have IT create an E-Mail address for the Art Dept's iTunes account, then create an Apple ID. Then I had to go over there with a college credit card and purchase it for them, then de-link the credit card from that Apple ID. Then we had to wait for the receipt to generate, have it forwarded to us and then forward it to an Apple E-Mail address for a refund for the tax, as we're a public college and tax exempt. Then Apple has to process our refund request and then sends a PAPER CHECK of the tax refund.

Meanwhile, if the Art Dept. wants a second copy of Apple Remote Desktop, can I just buy them another license? Nope. I have to create a second Apple ID for them. This process continues for any additional licenses, unless you get 20 or more in a single order, where then you just get voucher codes to redeem like iTunes gift cards.

This is the most poorly designed, non-corporate and Education focused thing I've seen them do in a long time.

All they needed to do was copy the way Edu purchases are done for iOS, but they didn't.

I'm in the tech department of a school district as well. My boss was saying how purchasing stuff for iPods is such a hassle because he has to use one account to get the vouchers, another account to get the actual software and all just a roundabout way of getting stuff. I guess the district is going to try to use this software called Filewave to manage app downloads/licensing stuff, but we're still waiting for it to be implemented.

JonEC · Sep 29, 2011

Catch 22

Let me get this straight...to access the Mac AppStore you need to have Snow Leopard installed. But to buy Snow Leopard, you need to connect to the Mac AppStore.

Doctor Q · Sep 29, 2011

It's good in the long run but it will eliminate some of the impulse shopping that students do when they walk by a bunch of pretty product boxes on a shelf in the campus store.

flottenheimer · Sep 29, 2011

JonEC said:
Let me get this straight...to access the Mac AppStore you need to have Snow Leopard installed. But to buy Snow Leopard, you need to connect to the Mac AppStore.

: ) Thanks.

Cougarcat · Sep 29, 2011

nagromme said:
And theres still a discount, in the sense that Apple has dropped their prices along with the move to downloading. So although edu customers arent paying any less than the public now, theyre still paying less than they used to pay for edu-discounted boxed software.

(I havent done the math on everything they sell, but if the discount was 10%, I cant think of a download Apple hasnt priced less than 10% lower than the previous boxed version. On the whole, then, edu costs for Apple software have dropped.)

It's more expensive. University bookstores are almost always cheaper than the EDU Apple Store. iWork for example is $39 at my university; it costs $71 from Apple.com and $60 from the MAS, $20 for each app.

This move was inevitable, I just hoped it would've happened after Edu pricing came to the MAS.

Sixtafoua · Sep 29, 2011

URG, this is bad news. Why can't they offer discounts on all the app stores? I guess now that apple is mainstream now, they don't need to cater to education, which is not a good move. As apple gets bigger, they're making dumber and dumber decisions....

accessoriesguy · Sep 29, 2011

yes environmentally friendly, no physical product, save money from having to get CD's made, boxes, boxed, shipped, distributed, and pay give a cut to the business selling the product as well. Apple helps earth, but saves money as well as make more money this way! brilliant

mrsir2009 · Sep 29, 2011

Apple is really progressing with ditching optical media

I'm in full support.

----------

JonEC said:
Let me get this straight...to access the Mac AppStore you need to have Snow Leopard installed. But to buy Snow Leopard, you need to connect to the Mac AppStore.

No, to buy Lion you need to connect to the Mac App Store.

BiggAW · Sep 29, 2011

This is good as long as they retain a way for schools in say, rural North Slope Alaska to get boxes copies of stuff. You can't exactly run the App Store over a 256k satellite link with 1200ms latency. But for 99% of users, myself included, this is a hugely positive change.

NicoleRichie · Sep 29, 2011

The one bad thing I see is that they are really telling all the education retailers to take a hike. Remember the education retailers were critical in the early 2000's helping to keep apple on the map. Now they are cutting part of their revenue stream.

TwoBytes · Sep 29, 2011

So logic is being phased out?

OllyW · Sep 29, 2011

musio said:
So logic is being phased out?

It hasn't been updated yet, the next version will be only be available from the MAS.

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/07/apple-moving-toward-release-of-logic-pro-x/

tarku · Sep 30, 2011

mrsir2009 said:
Apple is really progressing with ditching optical media I'm in full support.

----------

No, to buy Lion you need to connect to the Mac App Store.

I think he was refering to the point that is you have leopard and want to upgrade to Lion, you need to buy snow leopard first, which you need to access the app store now to do, but you don't get the appstore on 10.5 therefore you can't upgrade to Lion at all

okwhatev · Sep 30, 2011

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

tarku said:
mrsir2009 said:

Apple is really progressing with ditching optical media I'm in full support.

----------

No, to buy Lion you need to connect to the Mac App Store.

Click to expand...

I think he was refering to the point that is you have leopard and want to upgrade to Lion, you need to buy snow leopard first, which you need to access the app store now to do, but you don't get the appstore on 10.5 therefore you can't upgrade to Lion at all

Legally anyhow.

chaosbunny · Oct 1, 2011

mrsir2009 said:
Apple is really progressing with ditching optical media I'm in full support.

----------

No, to buy Lion you need to connect to the Mac App Store.

No you don't. You can also buy the usb stick with lion on it.

--

I don't get it why some people actually embrace the no more boxed software move from Apple. You can already buy everything you want on the app store, the fact that there is also a physical way to purchase it doesn't hurt you in any way! But some of us don't like to use the app store for various reasons, so it would be good to have the choice to do both.

Seriously, what's wrong with choices for everybody? Are some people really offended by someone else not liking their way of doing things but preferring another?

BiggAW · Oct 1, 2011

chaosbunny said:
No you don't. You can also buy the usb stick with lion on it.

--

I don't get it why some people actually embrace the no more boxed software move from Apple. You can already buy everything you want on the app store, the fact that there is also a physical way to purchase it doesn't hurt you in any way! But some of us don't like to use the app store for various reasons, so it would be good to have the choice to do both.

Seriously, what's wrong with choices for everybody? Are some people really offended by someone else not liking their way of doing things but preferring another?

It streamlines the whole release process, and brings the prices down. Having distribution for a small minority who don't want to get with this century would be harmful for the overall pricing and distribution. I do feel sorry for the small minority of people who can't get ready access to a broadband line, i.e. remote villages of Alaska or some places in foreign countries where there are fast, but heavily capped connections. For the vast majority of users, however, it works well.

class77 · Oct 1, 2011

As some point, won't having to buy 50 copies of software affect the school's internet download limits from their ISP?

Westside guy · Oct 1, 2011

NicoleRichie said:
The one bad thing I see is that they are really telling all the education retailers to take a hike. Remember the education retailers were critical in the early 2000's helping to keep apple on the map. Now they are cutting part of their revenue stream.

No, that's not an accurate statement. Apple still has deals with educational institutions in place. At the University of Washington, for example, we have a campus license that allows Lion, Snow Leopard, iWork, and iLife to be installed for free on any university-owned Mac.

Also don't forget that most App Store purchases can be installed on multiple computers (five, IIRC). If you've got more than one Mac, that brings the cost per title down quite a bit - even compared to the previous educational licensed prices.

Having said all that - I still prefer at least having the option of obtaining physical media for software I purchase. At the same time, the first thing I've always done is rip my software discs to CD/DVD images and save those to my backup disks.

srf4real · Oct 1, 2011

Jeez I had to pay 2x retail to get an unopened box set of 10.5 Leopard/ iLife '09 because of this silly boxless craze by Apple. Seriously, $240 for four year old software that retailed at $130? Really?

All I can say, is if you think you may ever, ever need a box set of SL get it now or you'll be hunting on EBay like I did down the road.

Apple Discontinuing Boxed Software for Educational Resellers

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