What it’s like to get a ‘peek behind the curtain’ and what I learned.
Written by: James Stockdale
Date published: 20th May 2024
On Tuesday 14th May Paul and I attended our first event as a member of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN), at Apple UK’s new HQ, housed in the recently re-opened Battersea Power Station development. In its heyday, the behemoth power station was responsible for supplying around a fifth of London’s electricity, but as a coal powered plant was also responsible for vast amounts of smog, that would choke the Capital’s air. In 1972 it was closed and became derelict for years to come, with various large-scale ideas being touted in the media, to redevelop the site. Now, some 50 years later and following significant investment the power station remains and the entire surrounding area redeveloped into a modern space to live, work, shop, dine and relax.
In recent years, Apple chose the newly emerging site to consolidate their office teams based in Uxbridge and Regent Street, and now houses around 2,500 staff making it their centralised UK head quarters. It is also home to their latest retail store, which is located on the ground floor of the shopping arcade.
Being a member of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN for short), Apple recognises that as a business you have the knowledge and expertise to help deliver an outstanding customer experience, to businesses of all shapes and sizes, who want to get the most from their products, helping their enterprises to flourish.
As Inception Support is a new member to the ACN, we were delighted to be invited to an event at Battersea, where other ACN’s from across the UK were invited to come together for an update on the ACN program and get a preview of the exciting roadmap ahead. At the time of writing there are currently 51 ACN’s in the UK, making this occasion all the more exclusive and even more exciting to be a part of. We got to network with more tenured ACN members that range from smaller, owner operated outfits, to SME’s with a tidy client base and headcount to boot.
As the official part of the proceedings began, we were welcomed by Apple executives, before being advised that the event content was being shared in confidence and to exercise discretion at what we shared and who with. It was clear that this was in the businesses interests all those in the room, as well as Apple. What follows then is my key takeaway from the day, considered carefully, in order to explore the opportunity before us, without compromising sensitive details.
AI has undoubtedly been the talk of the tech industry and between IT businesses and their customers, for the last 18 months. As businesses figure out the immediate and long-term potential of AI, vendors of this new horizon, including Microsoft and Apple (amongst others), have been hard at work developing the next generation of computers, AI PCs. These computers will allow the masses leverage the benefits of AI in their everyday lives. While the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. have AI capable hardware coming. The good news is if you have a Mac using Apple Silicon or iOS device with an A-Bionic chip, you already have it. It’s fair to say with the arrival of Spacial Computing in the form and the Vision Pro, AI is very much at the forefront of Apple’s mind and we can expect to see a lot more from them in this space as soon as the coming months.
In the short-term, the biggest opportunities for ACN’s are likely to be Windows 10 becoming end-of-life in 2025. With the move from Windows 10 to Windows 11, PC hardware will have to meet a minimum specification that in many cases render about three quarters of all computers in existence, completely redundant! For organisations that run a 3-5 year refresh cycle on their computers, this means they may have to replace their entire inventory. This creates a huge opportunity for ACN’s to position Mac as an alternative, like never before. Apple are acutely aware of this and as such are going to be supporting ACN’s heavily over the next year to make the most of these once in a generation circumstances.
In addition to this, Apple has ambitious plans to increase the number of ACN’s in the UK and Worldwide in the coming years, citing the thousands of existing IT providers and MSP’s as potential partners. By helping these businesses learn more about the Apple ecosystem and offer support for it, they can bring a greater choice to many, who are currently offered a Windows solution as the only one that’s viable. It will be interesting to see the appetite for this, as being involved with our IT support vendors, in my experience they are reluctant to offer Apple solutions as they are harder to monetise. Apple devices generally need less security and maintenance overhead, therefore reducing the endless up-sells for Windows environments.
In summary it’s fair to say that Apple has definitely seen the sleeping giant that is the SME market within the UK and is now poised to engage with its own community of ACN’s, to help drive the next wave of success for Apple adoption. It makes me very proud to be a part of this journey and underlines our ambitions to become a leading ACN, within international presence in the coming years. Before then, let’s see what the next six months brings, which is when the next ACN event at Battersea is planned for. I have a feeling that as ever, the best is yet to come.
If you would like to learn more about how your business can take advantage of the emerging AI world, with Apple at its core, reach out to us today.
