According to a letter from Apple's Contract Management office dated Friday, November 16th, 2007, Apple will be disbanding the Apple Authorized Business Agent program. In the AABA program, participants earned fees whenever their clients purchased Apple and related third-party products from an exclusive online store -- the Apple Business Agent Store. This announcement will affect approximately 800 agents across the United States.

By having this relationship with Apple, those agents recommended Apple products and third party solutions, then bought those products through their own private online store and did not have to incur the costs associated with becoming an Authorized Apple Reseller; Retail Space, Authorized Technicians, and Sales Staff.

"We appreciate your contribution to Apple's business as part of the Apple Business Agent program. Unfortunately, after careful consideration, we have decided to end this program," the e-mail said. "In accordance with section 12 B(i) of the Authorized Business Agent Agreement ('Agreement'), Apple is notifying you that your Agreement will be terminated effective January 1, 2008."

As one MacNN member notes:

"Personally, I never took this program too seriously because I know from experience that Apple makes these types of about-face moves at a moment's notice. Historically, time and again, Apple [has] proven to be loyal only to Apple, disregarding the needs of the individual resellers and evangelists who built Apple from the ground up and stuck with them through their lean times."

AABA members are different than ACN's (Apple Consultant Network) members in that they had the online store and were not on the referral list at Apple company stores as were ACNs. Typically, because of their business segment specialties, they were more often referred by Apple Authorized Resellers who did not have the in-house expertise.

According to some Authorized Resellers:

"While it gives us (The Authorized Reseller) a better option to work with the Agents rather than them being rewarded for directing business to Apple Direct, I think Apple came to the realization that the clients of these Business Agents would almost certainly purchase Apple products anyway, so they figured why not keep all the money!

The more profitable Apple becomes, the more greedy they become!"

"We are not Authorized Business Agents, and this change does not affect us in any way. The ABA program was set up primarily for people that do not have a storefront that wanted to sell indirectly to their clients (such as ACN's), and as I understand it, the results had been underwhelming.

In fact our channel (Apple Specialist) has just been integrated with the VAR channel and we are now considered the pinnacle of that channel. As we see it our lot has improved!"

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