Apple Ending 'Joint Venture' Program for Business Customers Next Month

[MacRumors]

Apple this week announced that its "Joint Venture" program will be ending on February 22, 2021. In an email, shared by MacRumors reader Ben, Apple said existing members will continue to have full access to the program through this date.

Launched in 2011, the Joint Venture program provided business customers who purchased a Mac, iPhone, or iPad with priority technical support, training on Apple products and services, and setup assistance for up to five Apple systems. The program had an annual fee that started at $499, and additional systems could be covered for $99 each.

Joint Venture essentially provided outsourced IT for small and medium-sized businesses that needed greater support and service than standard Genius Bar appointments and AppleCare telephone support. Fortunately, businesses can still receive priority technical support by purchasing AppleCare Help Desk Support, which provides two designated contacts with unlimited support incidents for Apple hardware and software for $499 per year.

Apple says existing Joint Venture customers will receive a prorated refund for any remaining portion of their membership.

Article Link: Apple Ending 'Joint Venture' Program for Business Customers Next Month

 

[star-affinity]

Interesting. I just found this ”Joint Venture” card at my new job and was wondering what it was about. Never heard of it despite working as an Apple tech since many years before 2011.

 

[beermode]

Basically, a lateral alternative is offered on support, but no replacement for training or setup assistance.

 

[newyorksole]

If you worked within Apple Retail around 2008-2011ish you remember how annoying of a metric Joint Venture was Lol. Couldn’t sell that or MobileMe to save my life!

It won’t be missed. (Well, I guess by some it will be)

 

[typecase]

I loved having support that came to your business to fix this. I had them fix our Mac Pro on site and replace the logic board. Sucks that no support option like this is now available.

 

[Brian Y]

If you worked within Apple Retail around 2008-2011ish you remember how annoying of a metric Joint Venture was Lol. Couldn’t sell that or MobileMe to save my life!

It won’t be missed. (Well, I guess by some it will be)

Absolutely - although my memories of it were from behind the bar. Despite pushing it to no end, and one of the promises being a loaner machine, they never allocated us any machines to give to joint venture customers!

From what I recall, every time one came in that needed a loaner, we needed to basically move a retail unit to the ISU bucket then RTW it when it came back, as we weren't allowed to give it to another customer for "data protection" reasons - long before GDPR!

 

[now i see it]

House calls axed during the plague

 

[Naraxus]

Timmy cheaping out to line his pockets further. Surprise surprise

 

[jcooper17]

If you worked within Apple Retail around 2008-2011ish you remember how annoying of a metric Joint Venture was Lol. Couldn’t sell that or MobileMe to save my life!

It won’t be missed. (Well, I guess by some it will be)

Do you mean ProCare?

 

[CWallace]

Timmy cheaping out to line his pockets further. Surprise surprise

If it was making Apple good money, they wouldn't be cancelling it.

 

[richard779]

I loved having support that came to your business to fix this. I had them fix our Mac Pro on site and replace the logic board. Sucks that no support option like this is now available.

All desktop AppleCare has this options. It does not need to be JV customers to get this.

 

[richard779]

If it was making Apple good money, they wouldn't be cancelling it.

It’s not. It’s so damn expensive, it’s good if your staff always need Genius Bar support, as it let you jump the Genius Bar waiting queue.

 

[AngerDanger]

This is going to be a huge blow to people who enjoy looking at paperwork while sitting in front of Macs.

 

[Localcelebrity]

If you worked within Apple Retail around 2008-2011ish you remember how annoying of a metric Joint Venture was Lol. Couldn’t sell that or MobileMe to save my life!

It won’t be missed. (Well, I guess by some it will be)

Gotta Improve those attach rates! I was the king of selling MobileMe and ProCare.

In my experience working at a flagship, the only people who ever bought Joint Venture were people buying Mac Pros, or like a dozen MacBook Pros.

I'm honestly surprised this lasted this long.

 

[vagabnd]

I loved having support that came to your business to fix this. I had them fix our Mac Pro on site and replace the logic board. Sucks that no support option like this is now available.

It still is. That wasn't exclusive to Join Venture.

 

[Apple_Robert]

This looks like a practical and cost effective program for some business owners. Too bad it is ending.

 

[discounteggroll]

Gotta Improve those attach rates! I was the king of selling MobileMe and ProCare.

In my experience working at a flagship, the only people who ever bought Joint Venture were people buying Mac Pros, or like a dozen MacBook Pros.

I'm honestly surprised this lasted this long.

ah I remember the good ole days of applecare/procare/mobileme attach rates working apple retail. I too sold the hell out of all 3, even got a bonus for destroying those attach rates and moving > $500k per quarter

 

[newyorksole]

Do you mean ProCare?

ProCare was before my time. I messed up the dates in my original post not realizing JV came out in 2011. It was a metric though for at least a couple of years it seemed.

 

[ChrisBos]

Absolutely - although my memories of it were from behind the bar. Despite pushing it to no end, and one of the promises being a loaner machine, they never allocated us any machines to give to joint venture customers!

From what I recall, every time one came in that needed a loaner, we needed to basically move a retail unit to the ISU bucket then RTW it when it came back, as we weren't allowed to give it to another customer for "data protection" reasons - long before GDPR!

Mine are from the training side, I was the "backup" JV Creative at a flag.

And just like so many regular old One to One sessions, the two I ended up delivering were full of MS Office, Adobe CS and other "unsupported" software questions that were way beyond what we were supposed to offer, at a table full of people with various use cases and skill levels with each. Good times.

 

[brandoman]

If you worked within Apple Retail around 2008-2011ish you remember how annoying of a metric Joint Venture was Lol. Couldn’t sell that or MobileMe to save my life!

It won’t be missed. (Well, I guess by some it will be)

So true. MobileMe was the worst. It did so much so terribly... especially syncing and it was crazy slow, much like .Mac before it. They always wanted us to sell it. One thing easy to sell was ProCare.

 

[ChrisBos]

So true. MobileMe was the worst. It did so much so terribly... especially syncing and it was crazy slow, much like .Mac before it. They always wanted us to sell it. One thing easy to sell was ProCare.

Literally the only reason to purchase .Mac was for the @Mac.com email address. To this day one of the best freebies I ever got from working there, and I will never, ever stop using that address.

 

[macsimcon]

I loved having support that came to your business to fix this. I had them fix our Mac Pro on site and replace the logic board. Sucks that no support option like this is now available.

Wrong. Joint Venture never included onsite service, that's why it sucked. The Apple Consultants Network was always a much better choice...and better qualified too.

Joint Venture TOS: https://www.apple.com/ca/retail/business/jointventure/terms.html

 

[mlrproducts]

Good riddance to this and every other “retail business” program they ever had. Non-supported joke. At my stores JV was basically a “free pass to the head of the line” at the GB.

I know other stores were different, but my 5+ years in retail business was a crap show when the store leaders in my area came from the Gap. That’s great you can manage a clothes store, but for some reason you can’t grasp that it would be beneficial to support a program (biz) that could drive 20%+ of a stores revenue with like 5% of its assets.

 

[Freeangel1]

More clues Windows 10 will and PC's will become an even bigger dominant force in the corporate world
Not the new M1 Macs. especially in a BAD economy.
iPads and iPhones YES.
Global usage of MACS will drop. they have been dropping

 

[Groovemaster17]

Ah yes! I was the designated Joint Venture Creative during 2013-2014. What a joke.

To think that we could support small to mid-size business from the confines of retail is laughable. Unless you were supporting a one-person photography 'company', the whole thing was way out of it's league.

Funny story- I once had a JV customer come in for support at the Genius Bar on a busy Saturday afternoon, and the manager on the floor told me it would be 'tough' to fit them in. Uhm... that's the point of the membership- priority appointments.

Nice try, Apple.