AppleCare versus Spares inventory

[#1]

A little off topic, but worth asking!

What is everyones take on purchasing AppleCare for every device versus purchasing a handful of spares to lower costs, and still provide excellent service? What is the chance you will have 1:1 failure of all devices?

The support cost percentage seems high versus the failure rate.

Thoughts!
--
Steve Flanagan

[#2]

Personal Opinion = I think its a little excessive to purchase for every unit.

Unfortunately at this time we have a company policy to purchase it for every portable…
But there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Recently we have become aware of an option that Apple offers. You can buy a limited stripped down version of AppleCare for your units.
It has no phone support and you can order service parts for in house repairs. You can also still have access to depot repairs for laptops and its only $49 per unit.

I would recommend you get a hold of your Apple rep and see what they can offer your organization.
We also looked at a blanket plan that would just cover everything, but I'm not sure about the details on that one.

Nick Caro Senior Desktop Support Administrator

[#3]

We buy AppleCare on nearly every piece of hardware, but we also have 3-4
year replacement cycles. We're an AppleCare self-servicing organization,
so we get parts next-day directly from Apple. That plus a handful of
loaner notebooks makes it work out. At the very least, AppleCare on
notebooks is worthwhile as they are (by virtue of being portable) more
fragile.

--Jim

[#4]

Interesting... I would expect that most of the troubles you encounter with laptops are things that AppleCare doesn't cover (batteries after the first year, cracked screens, drops, and liquid spills).

[ernstcs]

hard drives, main boards/power supplies.

We still purchase AppleCare on everything. At the moment it saves us time
to repair and cost.

We hope to eventually certify someone on-site to do the repairs, which
cuts the cost of your AppleCare, too.

We have a 4 year rotation.

Craig E

[stevewood]

How does having someone certified ACMT lower AC costs? We are an SSA, I'm
an ACMT, but I still pay the same for AC coverage on my devices. I'd be
interested in how you see a lowered costs. True, we get a credit each time
I do a repair and get the parts back to Apple on time, but that is minimal.

And I'm definitely checking with our Apple rep about that lower cost, parts
only AC.

Currently we put AC on everything. We looked at becoming a part of the
Enterprise agreement, but I don't call into Apple for support enough to
warrant the cost.

Steve Wood
Director of IT
swood at integer.com

The Integer Group | 1999 Bryan St. | Ste. 1700 | Dallas, TX 75201
T 214.758.6813 | F 214.758.6901 | C 940.312.2475

[ernstcs]

Might be an EDU thing?

[#8]

Hard drives fail so frequently that it's often better to buy them from anyone other than Apple, to get the benefit of the manufacturer's warranty (which doesn't cost extra, and usually lasts longer than AppleCare anyway). Keeping a supply of spare hard drives on hand is a very useful practice, I think.

I don't think logic boards fail frequently enough to justify paying for AppleCare on every unit. When there's a defect that affects several Macs, Apple will often fix it for free even without AppleCare (in my experience).

I haven't seen many problems with power supplies. Maybe I'm not abusing them enough? Or maybe too much?

I could be wrong, of course.

[#9]

...Huh? Never seen that before...
On Jan 28, 2011, at 11:03 AM, Urban, Benjamin Mark wrote:

Sorry about that. I hope it doesn't happen every time, or I will have to have a talk with someone.

[#10]

While Apple has done large-scale defect reimbursements / repair extensions
(e.g., some Sony batteries, Nvidia graphics on MBPs, and capacitor
failures on G5s), they don't get around to it for a good long while.
Obviously everyone's budget is different but we prefer having a relatively
fixed cost for the machine for its usable lifespan, as we have to budget
for classrooms and faculty upgrades, etc.

As to the hard drives: be aware that the newest iMacs (black glass to the
edge) use a built-in connector on the drive to get temperature
information, unlike previous iMacs that Apple would stick an external
temperature probe onto the drive. I can't say whether non-Apple-sourced
drives will support whatever they're doing, as I've not tried.

--Jim

[#11]

Hello Everyone and happy Friday!

We are getting close to deploying SCCM for our desktop management for PCs, we have about 3500 PCs and 600 Macs. While I use ARD to remote into and look at some Macs here and there, I am suspecting that I will need to do more of this in the not to distant future.

My question is, how many of you have PCs that you need to manage in addition to your Macs? Are any of you deploying or using SCCM for the PC world? Are using an extension plugin to allow Macs to participate with SCCM?

Since this is a Casper product we are all using and list serve we use is Jamf, I am just curious about a mixed environment and how others are managing it.

Thank you,

--
Michael D. Conners, APP
Apple Project Leader
3550 Anderson Street
Madison, WI 53704
Phone: 608-246-6360
Fax: 608-246-6329
Work E-Mail: mconners at matcmadison.edu<mailto:mconners at matcmadison.edu>
www.realworldsmart.com<http://www.realworldsmart.com/>

[ernstcs]

You and I have a very similarly mixed and sized environment. I am in the group that manages all the systems for campus so my windows counterpart sits next to me.

We use SCCM for WIndows management. We are not using the extension at this time but it has potential, it needs to mature a little more I think.

Craig E

[#13]

I'm an SCCM admin, currently have close to 12,000 desktops and servers being managed. Still working on the Mac side of Jamf, since I've been busy with MDM for one of our projects. The only integration that I know of with SCCM, is the $5000 plugin for inventory, from what I understand just pipes inventory data over to the SCCM reporting server.

-Mike

[tlarkin]

It depends on what you are deploying and who your users are. I work in a 1:1 in academia and I have about 200 out of 1400 in my building out for repairs at all times. My users are high school kids and some are pretty rough on their laptops.

as for our desktops in labs, they hardly ever break or go down. You want spare machines, but you also want apple care especially if your replacement cycle is every 4 years or so.

If you get a few techs in house that are apple certified you can become a self maintainer and Apple will pay you warranty labor dollars to repair your own stuff. You could look into that as well.

-Tom

[jafuller]

Hi Michael,
You may want to repost this under a different subject line so that it gets better visibility on the list serve. We use both Casper for Macs and SCCM for Windows. Our environment remains segregated. We haven't discussed any type of data integration at this point.
--
James Fuller | Technology Application Services | Starbucks Coffee Company | Coffee Master
E: jafuller at starbucks.com | V: 206.318.7153

[John_Wetter]

A little late to the party (have about 500 unread e-mails on the list!), but we buy Apple Repair Agreement on everything, it is cheaper than the APP, but allows us to still mail in repairs when we're busy, where as the Apple Parts Agreement allows only for parts. APA and ARA require a certified tech on a self-service account to get re-imbursed for repairs.

ARA - http://www.apple.com/support/products/acra/

APA - http://www.apple.com/support/products/acpa/

You can't buy APA or ARA through the on-line store, you need to get it bundled from a quote with your Apple account exec.

John

--
John Wetter
Technical Services Manager
Educational Technology, Media & Information Services
Hopkins Public Schools