Buying Apple Products For A College, Dilemma for end user Options

[midiwife]

I wonder if anyone else is experiencing the poblems I face...

I ordered 7 Dual processor 2.7GHz machines at the beginning of July aiming to have them all set up with new software installed and ready to run a whole range of music tech courses beginning on September 19th. I don't think this is an unreasonable plan.

I'm still waiting for the macs and have had to postpone the start of all of our courses (Logic, Cubase, Reason, Live, Sibelius and ProTools).

I also ordered a 10 user educational package of Logic Pro on June 24th and only yesterday, September 20th, I received one media set. I received the dongles several weeks ago.

I also ordered a wide variety of other software updates all of which beat these orders even if they were placed much later.

I am a long time mac user and fan but in terms of running a department, I now feel that Apple have let me down badly. The Macs are on order from an Apple reseller but they have told us that there is a severe problem in fulfilling orders for the top spec 2.7 machines. The problem seems to be coming from Apple US who are failing to supply these orders.

Apparently, the Logic delivery problem was due to the fact that Apple have changed the way they package and sell multi user licences for education.

It seems to me that Apple are advertising products that they seem unable or unwilling to supply in a reasonable period of time.

I would be keen to hear from anyone else who has had problems with orders for this machine or any other Apple products when ordering for education as I don't think I can be the only one facing tough choices for the future.

[lepetitmartien]

Apple has troubles with the dual 2,7 due to faulty processors, hence the supply is scarse. Now they could talk to consumers too…

Now waiting more than two month for his computers and whaeverlongthetime for logic packages is way out of the mark without at least proper information from Apple side. I don't know well about the educational dept at Apple on their way to deal with 1/orders 2/troubles. But there's certainly things to be done in order to clear this.

[midiwife]

I'd like to know what everyone thinks is a way to highlight this and to deal with it.

OK, I bought through educational suppliers, Music Village in the UK for Logic. They've only ever been extremely helpful and brilliant in the past. They were stunned at the lack of help from their suppliers on the Logic side of things. MV very helpful and resourceful.

The computers were through a London based reseller and I don't want to make them public unneccessarily. It's true about the 2.7 machines having problems and I haven't got them out their boxes yet. I hope they will be OK. Now though, I'm worried. Why are we, the valued customers, kept in the dark?

Time was when buying and Apple was buying reliability, build quality and something worth the money, especially when buying in bulk for a college. But... ask me about my 2.7s in 3 months or so...

The jury's still 'out' as far as I'm concerned!

Good luck to others.

[lepetitmartien]

There's always been some glitches in computers supplies but usually it's only from overwhelming orders generating backlogs. Here apple screwed the thing after stating publicly the 2.7 had problems IBM was working on. It's exactly the kind of thing we hear from Macbidouille/hardmac or from the rumor sites or MacNN. But the lack of communication is strange. It's not their fault if IBM did something wrong, but it surely is when customers are held in the dark.

About Logic, there's some real floating in the way post sales/support is handled. You are waiting for yours, meanwhile old registered customers wonder about simple things like who am I to call if I have a problem. Including some dongle issues questions (the blue ones) from 1/1/06 on.

Some customers have had great support, but there's definitely something not working on multiple issues.

The stupid thing is thru Applestore you would have had some updates.

I'd write to Apple Europe myself to shake things a bit. And send a copy to Cupertino is a good idea too Note that maybe it's the wholesaler managing orders in between which is mouth sealed stupidly, but there's no excuse for that. Those computers are for people who happen to work with, they expect them to come on time or at least to stay in touch with the state of things.

[midiwife]

I'm definitely motivated to take this further!

Thanks for your advice.

[dixiechicken]

You can always say that you want to or are considering cancelling the orders -
wether said statement is true or not.

Many of the apps you mentionend - except Logic - exists for both platforms.
Mac & PC.

Tell them you will save quite a bit of money for your department if you switch
platforms.
Also if for your dept - things work like in sweden - postponed courses or
student choosing other courses or moving to other depts - means that your dept is loosing hard cash.

( In swedish universities -
1/3 of the money moves with the students - Taxpayers money
1/3 of the money comes with the research - Taxpayers money
1/3 of the money is externally founded - - Mixed bag some private money)

There's no reason for you to put up with this sloppy behaviour.
Also be shure to follow "lepetitmartien":s advice - to contact Apple Europe
and Cuppertino.

If you have some kind of "consumers rights" organisation in your country -
talk to them and get their advice as well.

Good luck to you & give them hell.
Cheers: Dixiechicken

[midiwife]

Cheers Dixiechicken,

The information you state about Sweden makes very interesting reading.

In fact we did lose out, mostly in terms of additional administration burden to contact all our incoming students, ammend tutor contracts etc. The actual funding will remain the same I'm guessing but it's been a real headache for our whole department.

Although we have the machines now, they were ordered with additional internal HDs and additional RAM chips.

I work part time, and because of the real rush to get the machines ready for teaching, I wanted to fit these myself as we'd had them delivered previous to the macs themselves. A representative from the reseller told me that if I did so, I would void my warranty. I'm quite sure that this is not true, I've never heard this to be the case.

So the nightmare continues and I've taken a day off to cool down...

Kind regards to you,

Karina Townsend.

[lepetitmartien]

About the set of media for Logic you received, I think it's normal (one set to install, and keys to authorize, no need to multiple boxes, it's a multiple post licence, save over-wise stated of course…). It doesn't explain the time it took anyway.

And for the computers, if apple can't follow the order, a solution must be found and fast.

[midiwife]

But I actually ordered 2 media sets (install DVDs) as I wanted to keep a back-up set in my office!!! Maybe I got the last set ever made

[CanadaRAM]

Although we have the machines now, they were ordered with additional internal HDs and additional RAM chips.

I work part time, and because of the real rush to get the machines ready for teaching, I wanted to fit these myself as we'd had them delivered previous to the macs themselves. A representative from the reseller told me that if I did so, I would void my warranty. I'm quite sure that this is not true, I've never heard this to be the case.

You need to find a new reseller, if they lie to you like this.