Comment Not a new concept (Score 1) 67
I'm aware of a few companies that do something like this. It's popular in some business circles. I think of it as a fancy Lease, basically. Here's how it essentially works:
-You get a 'current' device at all times, refreshed at a regular interval
-Often, you can upgrade at any time to a higher device class too. For a fee of course
-Things like an advanced warranty are baked into the price. Yes that includes accidental breakage as well. You get a replacement automatically when this happens.
-As a customer (ie larger corporation) you don't worry about the recycling or refresh planning so much, but
-At the back end, there's a repair/remarketing part of the business that's always got a pretty good forecast for used inventory that'll be coming back from your customers after a specified amount of time. This is the secondary revenue stream which helps keep costs competitive.
At least the way it's been presented to me, it's looked at as a win/win/win. It is appealing for some, to remove some hassles around device ownership. I'm not sure about the play for this on the consumer front, but this looks like Apple basically trying to accomplish the same thing that parts of the industry have already been doing more directly.
-You get a 'current' device at all times, refreshed at a regular interval
-Often, you can upgrade at any time to a higher device class too. For a fee of course
-Things like an advanced warranty are baked into the price. Yes that includes accidental breakage as well. You get a replacement automatically when this happens.
-As a customer (ie larger corporation) you don't worry about the recycling or refresh planning so much, but
-At the back end, there's a repair/remarketing part of the business that's always got a pretty good forecast for used inventory that'll be coming back from your customers after a specified amount of time. This is the secondary revenue stream which helps keep costs competitive.
At least the way it's been presented to me, it's looked at as a win/win/win. It is appealing for some, to remove some hassles around device ownership. I'm not sure about the play for this on the consumer front, but this looks like Apple basically trying to accomplish the same thing that parts of the industry have already been doing more directly.