ANTenna Blog

There are more ways to buy Apple hardware and software – and get technical help with configuring what you need – than going through the Apple Web site and retail stores, or by purchasing through resellers like Amazon.com (no sales tax!) or other merchants.

Apple offers a small business consulting service – you can get to it in the United States at (800) 654-3680. This week, I used the service to buy an Apple Xserve to use as an e-mail server.

Online, I spec’d out the machine as follows on the standard Apple Web store:

Xserve: Two 2.0GHz Dual-core Intel Xeon processors, 80GB SATA drive ($2,999)
Increase to 4GB RAM ($699)
Replace the 80GB drive with a 750GB drive ($499)

Total: $5,147

I had some technical questions regarding the integration of the box's Mac OS X Server 10.5.1 “Leopard Server” with a Windows Server 2003 primary domain controller (that’s a conversation for another day), so before buying, I called the phone number above. That got me in touch with Andy, a SMB consultant, who instantly got an engineer on the line.

After running through everything to my satisfaction, Andy offered a custom quote for the Xserve. The prices he quoted were substantially lower across the board — $3,861 for the hardware, $903 for the AppleCare, for a total of $4,764. Andy got the sale.

By the way, Apple offers a special Apple Store for Business. Its prices are the same as the standard Web store, but it offers commercial financing options and other business-friendly offers. It's useful, but next time, I'm phoning for a quote.