Last week we told you about a top-secret meeting with Apple retail staff being held on Sunday night, reportedly focused on a new small business support service dubbed “JointVenture.” Expected to launch this week, details have now leaked out of the meeting.
9to5Mac reports that Apple’s new small business support service called JointVenture will be launching this week (March 2 has been pegged as the start date), with initial details leaking out from a Sunday night “all hands” meeting. JointVenture will essentially be Pro Care (the business-centric version of AppleCare) on steroids, aimed at taking on switchers from the land of Microsoft.
According to staff leaks, Apple plans to charge $499 for up to five users and $99 for each additional user per year, clearly aiming for small business with less than 10 seats. “Apple thinks Microsoft is exposed in this area because small businesses of this size are more agile, aren’t as likely to be connected to a complicated Microsoft infrastructure and don’t have a dedicated IT person to steer them wrong,” 9to5Mac explains.
Apparently the $499 is in addition to a three-year AppleCare plan, but JointVenture will get “Prioritized Genius Bar” (which lets small businesses cut to the head of the line instead of waiting with the masses as they now do), phone calls to Genius Bar techs, loaner computers for repairs that take more than 24 hours and “customized workshops” where staff can learn Mac-oriented ways to grow their business and get the most out of their hardware.
While JointVenture doesn’t do much for the rest of us, it’s nice to know that Apple is looking out for the small business owner who makes up the backbone of our great nation, and the service is expected to expand with additional services as time goes on.
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(Image courtesy of 9to5Mac)
