Without an announcement, Apple has seemingly introduced a business program designed to allow upgrades of computers for a monthly fee. Called the “New Mac Notebook Upgrade Program”, and reported on by the Verge, it’s a lease program with CIT Group. The page is titled “Apple M1 Refresh”, giving an indication of the reasoning. The idea – pay about 3% of the Mac notebook cost each month.
Why do we care?
Couple this with the Small Business Essentials packages… Apple has an entire, Apple-only, Managed Services offering.
I can hear the screams saying this isn’t for MSPs, and it’s not realistic, and it’s not heterogenous, blah blah blah.
And last I checked Apple is doing just fine.
I’m not proposing this will dominate the marketplace. Correctly, many MSPs will say “this isn’t a threat”. Sure, probably not in the short term, or in your specific customer base. And still, there should be something in the back of your mind really worried about this kind of offering.. if your value is just infrastructure management.