Apple Resellers

[reprised]

Hi

 

Can anyone recommend some reliable apple resellers? Also, can anyone recommend a reliable data cabling company preferably near to us in north west London who doesn't mind doing the little jobs as well as the big ones?

 

Thanks

[psydii]

Macs: Misco / XMA

Cabling: NGBailey / ITM

 

Cabling companies are the premium end of the market, but if you need little jobs doing quickly you either do them in house or pay the premium. Both are big on proper documentation.

[bitznpcz]

I buy a lot of Apple stuff from Jigsaw24 in Nottingham. Great prices and great service. My sales rep is [email protected]

 

If you contact her, please mention my referral.

[Norphy]

Mac Supplier: Toucan, based in Enfield

 

Networking people: Lanode

[3s-gtech]

We've had very good service from Misco with our Apple equipment (iPads, iMacs, Mac Minis, Apple TVs).

[speckytecky]

Highgate IT Solutions gets the thumbs up from me for just about everything Please PM me if you want contact details of the cheeky chappie who manages our account - a fabulous fellow who has been our account manager for numerous years and comes with 100% recommendation from me. That said Apple are keen to have schools dealing direct we have an account manager with them.

[Allie]

I have placed several orders with Academia and so far they have proven to be extremely responsive, helpful, and quick to deliver based on this small sample. Obviously, everything has changed rapidly now that, for those of us at universities on the national purchase framework, we are no longer able to buy from Apple. Our choices are limited to Stone, Academia, XMA, and Insight.

 

Stone is the preferred supplier, but they aren't able to provide what I need (future enrollment with Device Enrollment Program, which I plan to begin using in the near future, and which I have been told Stone doesn't participate in), so I went to the second preference after getting several good references. I am hesitantly supportive of Academia, but I'm reserving full judgement until I've placed a few more orders with them. I have had a good conversation with our account manager at Academia, and I was impressed. I do have a coworker in another department who has used Stone, and had some issues with severe delays, but they have been very apologetic to him and the account manager has also been great - I think the delays should settle down once they're used to the huge influx of Apple orders, so I wouldn't count Stone out if they can meet your needs. I would, however, call your account manager first and be sure they can deliver the turnaround time required, they have an update on their website now about this, and promise it's going to improve.

 

XMA and Insight are lower ranked on the purchasing agreement, so I didn't seriously consider them. I have had turnaround time issues with other (non-Apple) orders placed with Insight in the past though, which may be worth taking into consideration.

Edited July 10, 2016 by Allie

[Sephiroth]

I would recommend Counterpoint for Macs. We use them for everything beyond 1st line as we don't have anyone in-house with the skill set. They do everything from software updates to full suite imaging to sever set-up. They also joined our Mac server (dustbin) to our AD domain and set up backups. If anyone wants a contact, drop me a PM.

 

We used to use XMA for our project works. Their support and communication has been dire since they were bought out by Viglen. We waited for 2 months for a response to a request for a scheme of works for a major project, to be told that the engineer that we'd been talking to (and that had done most of the works on our site before now and knew the infrastructure intimately) had been reassigned without us being told. That engineer was the only thing keeping us with the company.

 

For cabling I would recommend Advantage Technologies, whom have cabled the entirety of one of our buildings for AV and projection (projector, speakers, amp, breakout box, cable kit, whiteboard). We also got them to re-cable a large amount of the building, including moving a cabinet out of an office and re-terminating everything in it. They are a little more expensive than some but their work is very good.

Edited July 10, 2016 by Sephiroth

[reprised]

Thanks everyone

[Stone_Charli]

Hi @Allie, just wanted to clear something up from your post - we do in fact offer DEP and have been doing so for many universities. Could I ask where you heard that we didn't as it would be good for me to let them know?

[Allie]

Hi @Allie, just wanted to clear something up from your post - we do in fact offer DEP and have been doing so for many universities. Could I ask where you heard that we didn't as it would be good for me to let them know?

 

Thank you Charli, that's very good to know! My apologies for the misunderstanding! It was a fellow IT manager at another university, not an official source at Stone. I'll tell him that you do offer it. One question though, and I'm not familiar with it yet, is it easy for us to mix and match resellers we used when we start using DEP? I know I can go back and enroll about seven years of purchases (according to the JAMF training people), but is it going to be easy for me to enroll my old Apple orders, my Academia orders, and any orders for, for example Stone (or XMA or Insight if they come in cheaper).

Edited July 12, 2016 by Allie

[Stone_Charli]

Yes, we can auto-enroll retrospective devices into DEP at no extra charge. If the you are able to supply us with an inventory (including serial numbers), as well as your DEP ID - we can get these uploaded into DEP.

[Allie]

Yes, we can auto-enroll retrospective devices into DEP at no extra charge. If the you are able to supply us with an inventory (including serial numbers), as well as your DEP ID - we can get these uploaded into DEP.

 

Thank you very much. We don't have that setup yet, but that's on a "later this year" goal list - once we start managing with Casper Suite. Again, I'm very sorry for passing along incorrect info I was told elsewhere. I guess that's why you're here though, and I appreciate it very much!