Slash Lane
An e-mail recently sent to customers from a major academic institution confirmed that Apple has informed them of the change. That e-mail, obtained by CNet, explains that Apple will no longer offer boxed software except "with limited exception."
It's yet another move toward all-digital distribution of software from Apple, which launched the Mac App Store this January, and has since put its highest profile releases on the digital storefront — most notably this July's debut of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
Upon the release of Lion, Apple initiated a mass continuation of boxed software at its retail stores. Virtually all of the company's retail software was declared "end of life," meaning it would no longer be sold in physical form at stores, including iWork '09, Aperture 3 and iLife '11.
Those same applications are affected by the change for sales to education customers who were notified by Apple this week. The e-mail referred to the note as a "last call" for anyone who wants to buy from the school store.
In particular, customers were told that the store recently received its final shipment of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the last operating system by Apple to be distributed on disc. Customers can still get Lion via physical medium on a USB thumb drive, but Apple charges a $40 premium to encourage customers to go digital.
As for the "limited exception," two products do remain available in physical form: Logic Express and Logic Studio. But even that could change in the near future, as Apple is said to be working on Logic Pro X, a new version of its professional digital audio and music sequencing program.
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
Christine McKee
William Gallagher
Mike Wuerthele
25 Comments
Apple initiated a mass continuation of boxed software at its retail stores.
This I like!
From what I was told yesterday, each organization (edu. or enterprise) that needs to buy Apple software must create one or more App Store accounts to obtain the software via download. You must obtain quotes and make your purchases offline via your Apple representative. They will then supply you with a redemption code to go use in the App Store to download the .pkg file.
That file can be distributed to all the devices you bought licenses for (by whatever means you like; ARD, Casper Suite, sneakernet. etc.). The software is not serialized but it *is* signed to the account that redeems the code. That means only that account will be notified and be able to download future updates to that package.
Hope this helps others who do large-scale purchasing and distribution of Apple software.
Yes! No more boxes! Educational institutions should get used to the whole download license method. Who want's to be in charge of keeping an inventory of all the software for a department? That was a pain when I had to do that in College in our Film/Video Department. Going digital will be beneficial to everyone. Especially where most departments upgrade every year or two, think of all that waste, storage space, inventory cataloging!
On the one hand, this makes sense and digital distribution is definitely the way to go in the long run.
However, there are some major caveats with the digital distribution method that really should be addressed before Apple goes this route. First and foremost, it is extremely presumptuous on Apple's part to think that everyone that qualifies for an educational discount has a broadband connection that can reasonably download some of their larger software packages, such as students, faculty, and staff off-campus that are subjected to the same crappy ISPs as evryone else, or none at all.
I work at a university, receive the educational discount through the university's bookstore, and recently purchased Logic Studio, in the box, precisely because I heard this was coming. I was told they will NOT be receiving anymore physical copies of Logic Studio. Do you know how big Logic Studio is with all of its associated resources? I'll tell you, it's 9 DVDs-worth, or about 54Gb installed. Have fun downloading that from the App Store.
I can see downloading Logic Pro X (app only) through the App Store, but I guess that means no more Jam Packs, Apple Loops, or other resources.
I'm fine downloading software, but the issue isn't the download it's the fact that a purchase has to be tied to an iTunes account. If the APP has DRM then you need to also be logged in with that account. This causes serious issues in an Enterprise, much like the iPad does. The institution wants to always retain it's own purchases forever and so we end up managing hundreds of email aliases we use to generate iTunes accounts. It wouldn't be so bad, but there is also no model like the Volume Purchasing Program for the App Store for the Mac App Store and so tax exempt schools get taxed on purchases and then have to go through a process to get their tax back.
It's a boat load of overhead in a managed environment to say the least. Cart before the horse in regards to the Mac App Store. But I get it...Enterprise is the second class citizen to the bread and butter personal consumers.