Apple courting small businesses
It's been a long time in coming, but it sounds like Apple is finally getting on board with officially seeking small business customers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is seeking engineers for its retail stores who will specialize in putting together and supporting systems for small business customers… a far cry from the days when the small business person had a limited menu of mostly consumer-oriented support options to choose from if he or she wished to run their business with Apple products.
Apple's vast success in the consumer world recently has also propelled it into more small businesses than ever. Small business owners tend to blend their business and personal technology to a much greater degree than employees of big businesses, so Apple's penetration into the consumer market has also dragged it deeper into the small business market. This has only served to reveal the limitations of the company's existing sales and support systems when it comes to business needs, however. While other large computer hardware vendors have long had specific small business support services targeted to the more immediate needs of those types of customers, Apple's "when we get around to it" consumer-grade support rubbed nerves raw.
By leveraging their existing retail stores to provide these small business services, the company is poised to gain an advantage over competitors, who often operate primarily via e-mail, phone, and shipping, or who use local contract technicians of widely varied expertise. Putting a legitimate, certified, corporate face on their small business offerings may be a boon to Apple's growth in the market.