But it’s become increasingly clear in the last few years that Apple is no less corporate than Microsoft, or any other major vendor. When the guys at Gizmodo got their hands on the prototype iPhone that a hapless engineer left in a bar, Apple went for the throat. They didn’t just want the phone back, they wanted blood… in the form of a police raid on editor Jason Chen’s house. Say whatever you want about the ethics of Gizmodo spending $5,000 on the scoop and writing a story instead of turning in the product, but a police raid was a bit unnecessary.

And of course, there’s the disabled woman on a fixed income, with no credit or debit cards, who saved up her cash to go fulfill her dream of owning an iPad, only to be told at the store, “We don’t take cash.”  Um… what?  I understand that Apple relies on plastic to reduce piracy and whatever, but this wasn’t a woman trying to buy 10 iPads. Read the story here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/18/apple-store-rejects-cash_n_580357.html. 

Then there are Apple’s business practices in the channel. I’ve heard a few stories from anonymous sources that just made me shake my head. I heard about Apple having serious shipment problems, so partners made large inventory purchases to avoid the shipping issues. After this partner had purchased the large inventory, Apple immediately upgraded everything affected by the shipping issues, leaving resellers with warehouses full of outdated products.

I also heard a story about Apple offering the certification and training to partners to make memory installations. When Apple realized how much money the partners were making by making memory installs to existing customers, they upped the memory per computer sold — at the same price — so customers would no longer have to buy memory installations. One could argue this was for the benefit of the customers, but why would they hold this against their partners?

Then there is Luke Wignall, who was recently dumped by Apple after being a reseller for two years. His company applied for renewal and heard a resounding “no” because of its sales and the size of its customer base. Apple demands a $175,000 annual sales quota, from what I’ve heard. And that does not include products such as iPhones, iPads or iPods.

Keep in mind, this is an SMB services company. Apple can’t really expect that ONLY enterprise customers are going to purchase their goods — in fact, it’s much more likely that a 10-seat office would bring its mobility business to Apple because everyone wants an iPhone. In an enterprise, that kind of decision would take months to make and it’s even less likely if everyone is already on a BlackBerry network.

 ”Apple has no desire for there to be a lot of resellers,” Luke said. ”What they want is a one-man, stereotypical Prius-driving Mac expert who loves to do services work and repair work. They don’t want to deal with that, they want people to go to their stores. How much do they devote in their stores to repair? Almost none.”

Apple didn’t respond to one email and two phone calls requesting for comment, but I called them again today, and we’ll see if they have anything to say for themselves.

Do you have an interesting Apple experience, good or bad? I’d love to hear about it. Email me at ehom@techtarget.com.

The VAR Guy Says:

Apple’s channel? Hmmm… The VAR Guy will withhold comment. Oh, except for this item: Great products, limited channel.
-TVG

Exactly what I had suspected, confirmed by The VAR Guy himself (check out the full Google Android OS vs. iPhone story). I am currently working on a part two of the news story, including information from non-Apple resellers (and one recently dumped Apple reseller) and how they handle the Mac/iPhone integration demand.

But there is even more to the story. I am culling all sorts of stories from Apple resellers, including the horror tale of the Apple reseller whose application for renewal got denied, and other stories about the insidious side of Apple. If you’ve got a story about how Apple has treated you (good or bad), I’d love to hear from you!  Drop me an email at ehom@techtarget.com.

I am kicking myself for not buying shares of Apple at the time, but hey, I was in middle school.

According to this Yahoo! exclusive analysis, Apple is creating trends to the delight of consumers, coming out with new highly consumable products every year, whereas Microsoft is still living off of the fat of Microsoft Office and other mainstays from decades past.

Apple products are beginning to find their way into SMBs and enteprises, as well, with iPhones leading the charge for a couple of years now.  But most networks simply aren’t equipped for this.  This week, we found out that universities are beginning to ban iPads because of DHCP client malfunctions, authentication issues, and other strains on network resources.  While the majority of people purchase these products for recreational use, it isn’t surprising that many are going to try to use them for professional use as well.  And professional use is going to require a different type of seller, not just Apple stores in trendy malls.  Apple is going to need to generate a channel presence and recruit a major number of resellers who know how to troubleshoot problems like the ones facing Princeton and GWU.

But Apple’s channel program is relatively quiet compared to Microsoft’s. In fact, when I searched for info on Apple’s channel program when the iPad was first announced, this page did not exist. This is the first time I’ve seen it, and I’m positively wowed by the transparency compared to when I tried to find info months ago.  While it appears that they are becoming more and more visible, it’s clearly not as established as Microsoft’s channel program.  And if Apple really wants to make Microsoft’s knees quake, a serious channel program is the way to go.  It needs to be a channel program full of training for resellers who’ve grown up in the Microsoft era and have to learn how to troubleshoot Apple products.  If Apple can train an army of resellers to sell both their products and also implement and administer Apple product-ready networks, Microsoft will have some serious competition on its hands.

While we wait for Apple to make bigger waves in the channel, I would love to hear from existing Apple partners or people who are applying to become Apple partners.  Or, if you’re a Microsoft partner who would like to react to this (good or bad), I’d also love to hear from you.  Drop me an email at ehom@techtarget.com.