This past weekend, Apple had a secret meeting for retail employees this past weekend was in fact for Joint Venture, a new service provided by Apple designed specifically for small business, particularly those around ten employees. The service would provide “advanced and priority technical support for small business.” Both and 9to5Mac have both gone digging for what the program comprises, and have found interesting details for the new program. This is what the companies ended up discovering: The service will allow genius bar telephone support and priority access for customers. Joint Venture members will be able to reach the Genius Bar by phone, instead of bringing their machines into a retail store. Members who do go into a store will receive priority access to genius support. Members will receive loaner 15-inch MacBook Pros for any service that requires a computer to be taken for longer than 24 hours. The program will also allow members to attend specific and specialized workshops that allow the business to integrate Apple products seamlessly into their work. Other perks include new-machine setup, data-transfers, and exchange set-up. According to these reports, Apple will be charging $499 for up to 5 users, and $99 for each additional user/year. These prices are on-top of the price of Applecare for purchased machines. What do you think of Apple’s move? Let us know in the comments below! [Source: 9to5Mac, MacRumors] Authors:

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