[mac software] Apple Volume Licensing - being pushed to a reseller?

[sidewinder]

A few weeks ago I managed to create a basket on the apple education store for 22 of Mountain Lion, Garageband and iMovie, at £6 ex VAT for each copy of Mountain Lion and £4.88 for each of the apps. Ticked a box to ask Apple to contact me but they never did.

So I called their education department today and they've kind of just fobbed me off to a company called Jigsaw24 - who look fine, but seem to add a quid or two on top of the prices I got from Apple. Why can't I buy direct?

[Captain_Slow]

We've just had this trying to get 45 copies of Mountain Lion.

 

A quote direct from Apple Store for Education was £270, with Jigsaw24 quoting over £400.

 

So we've gone back to Apple and queried if it's definitely not possible to enrol onto the store as the difference in quotes is quite substantial. They've agreed to look into it if we send them a purchase order to kick start the process.

 

Maybe worth you giving it a try?

[Robbocop]

Guys sorry to butt in. I work for Jigsaw24 and I'd like to get to the bottom of this for you. We work to the pricing Apple give us as a reseller, as does every other reseller, so if Apple are undercutting the prices they ask us to sell for I'd like to ask them why. Captain, your 45 OS X licences should have been quoted to you at £7.50 per licence - that's £337.50 plus VAT (£405.00 inc VAT). I'm looking through a long list of quotations and I can't see any other prices we've quoted so I'd be keen to find out what happened. i'll check with Apple and see what I can find out for you both. I apologise that you've had a bad experience over this.

[Captain_Slow]

Hi Robbacop,

 

The prices from Apple were taken from The Apple Store for Education.

 

In the end we went with RM as they were only charging £7 per licence (£315 plus VAT).

[Robbocop]

Thanks Captain! I've fired of a question to Apple to ask what their official line is, but I'm sure you'll agree that if they can quote prices they should be able to sell to you, and if they can't sell to you they shouldn't be quoting unless they quote the prices a reseller can sell them for I'm glad you got your licenses sorted in the end.

[Robbocop]

OK, a quick follow up to this just for completeness. Apple will let you buy software direct from them if your school is set up to do that. The "shop" page lets you pull the products into a list which you can save and pass on to your purchaser, but unless YOU are the authorized purchaser with Apple, you can't place the order. Talk to Apple to work that out. An authorized Apple reseller should always be able to beat Apple's pricing for hardware because we get a margin to play with, but for software there is no dealer margin available. However, for convenience you might want to order licenses from a dealer anyway, even if it's a quid or two more. Your call as always, but I thought I'd clarify that so you know we're not all trying to rip you off