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

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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.

apple business customers
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.

Tag: AppleCare Guide

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Top Rated Comments

AngerDanger Avatar
AngerDanger
67 months ago
This is going to be a huge blow to people who enjoy looking at paperwork while sitting in front of Macs. :(



Attachment Image
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
newyorksole Avatar
newyorksole
67 months ago
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)
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
typecase Avatar
typecase
67 months ago
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.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
B
Brian Y
67 months ago

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!
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CWallace Avatar
CWallace
67 months ago

Timmy cheaping out to line his pockets further. Surprise surprise
If it was making Apple good money, they wouldn't be cancelling it.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
C
ChrisBos
67 months ago

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.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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