Apple Retail's alliance with OnForce: A bad deal for consultants, consumers?

This is not scaling as they add regions...quite the opposite...I know because I am one of the OnForce techs "chosen" for service. The drop off in tickets being issued in drastic since February.

I spent some time reading on the Onforce website today - it seems they advertise a $15.00 fee per posted job - not a percentage. It is definitely offensive to see that Apple based work would be treated differently.
We will likely not be joining Onforce anytime soon.

With regard to Joint Venture for small businesses - I have to say that I am almost happy to see this. We get more new business from existing Mac based businesses who have had a narrowly defined experience with an overly rigid mac business consultant. Unless we can expect Apple to start installing, supporting, and servicing non-Apple based OS such as Windows and Linux, and hardware such as timeclocks, label printers, phone systems etc... - this is just going to be a funnel for those of us who can actually leverage a combination of technologies to implement the best solution. With Apple itself being the "less-than-desirable" previous consultant, it might even be easier to raise consulting fees ourselves.

...the loaner computers are pretty nice tho...

Joining OnForce is not only a very bad move, but it also proves the faling of Apple. For years, Apple has had a number of fans that we call sick fanatics. Those people breath and eat Apple. Apple has mainly relied on Apple Consultants Network (ACN) for years and ACN with its network of consultants have supported Apple and made it what it is today by preaching Apple and fixing Apple products. Apple Retail just recently turned its back on the Apple Consultant Network in order to join the largest digital sweatshop of technicians in the Globe. Apple made the move because they got so greedy and they didn't expect for such a move to backfire as much as it has. Apple believes in all the fake promises made by OnForce and they failed to do their homework. This is not the first time Apple has formed alliance with a sweatshop entity. Apple is the biggest supporter of sweatshop labor in the world hiring people to work 34 hours non stop in China to make the Ipod. Why this should be a surprise? Only this time while they are joining force with OnForce sweatshop, they are leaving many fans behind. Apple is making a big mistake because while they are giving up on their own; other pc, phone and electronic manufacturers are strengthening their own network - for example Google Android is ramping up their network and Android now has the largest number of apps and counting... Apple has also adopted a solo strategy selling software on their own to maximize their profit through Itunes and other media owned and controlled only by them. As reported by Bnet, some Aple Apps developers have rebelled and they are giving up on Apple. (see reference article below). I often say greed my friend, it will take you nowhere. It is not about how much you can get in short term, in a matter of days, weeks and months. What matters is how you can keep earning for generation to come without abusing your customers, your fans, your employees, your very own network of folks who have made you what you are today. Do you remember Blockbuster - where are they now? I know where Netflix it - they are profitable, innovative and they will be making money for generation to come by simply charging lower fees without taking advantage of their customers. Hopefully, they'll stay on the right course. All apple had to do to find out what OnForce is was a quick visit to our site onforcesucks.com even other countries where OnForce plans to expand use our site as part of their research. As mentioned Apple is not new to sweatshop, but this move will certainly take a wrong turn = Apple will fail. If you notice the Ipad and Iphone are losing their popularity as HTC and Android are gaining significant market share.



Apple new subscription rules now upsetting developers, too
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/apple-new-subscription-rules-now-upsetting-developers-too.ars

Apple Cracks the Whip. Will Its Business Partners Rebel?
http://www.bnet.com/blog/technology-business/apple-cracks-the-whip-will-its-business-partners-rebel/8800

Apple Admits Child Labor & Sweatshops Used to Build iPhones
http://news.change.org/stories/apple-admits-child-labor-sweatshops-used-to-build-iphones

To Dana:

Hi Dana, it's been awhile. Since you left OnForce there have been some changes, one of the most recent of which is the launch of a service they call a "Project Management offering". To quote their official press release, it "enables companies to have OnForce dispatch and manage resources for service work, on a pay-per-project basis, on demand. As a result, organizations are better able to increase revenue opportunities and strengthen their customer relationships, while OnForce handles the on-site services component."

Apparently what this means is that OnForce takes on the Buyer as an agent would take on a client. To some OnForce "Pros" (What OnForce now calls the Providers) this could mean opportunity. To others, it is viewed as a potential threat, as some feel this could put OnForce in direct competition with their own "Pros". (You can read the entire press release at http://www.onforce.com/?page=mediaroom_pressrelease&id=393 ).

Unfortunately, Steven's assessment is entirely correct. To quote Steven, "Some members who have signed up with OnForce have reported getting pushed out of Apple support work by uncertified consultants with no Mac or iOS experience. Others say that the OnForce accept / decline process, combined with the electronic paperwork after the support call is finished, is taking much longer than their own in-house processes took — at much less pay."

This does happen. It has been happening for awhile. Both of these issues were prime complaints in the OnForce forums about the platform in general that were given the brush off by management. Members of the community managment team would either respond with corporate double speak or not respond at all.

One of the OnForce "community managers" commonly used the tactic of posting odd comments that were not related to the issues at all in an obvious attempt to steer the discussion away from these hot topics. (I am told he still does this). This tactic was both frustrating and annoying to the forum members and a lot of us viewed it as the equivalent of holding one's hands to one's ears and singing "la-la-la". In other words, they weren't listening.

Dana, you know who I am. I joined OnForce in early 2004 as a Provider and later, also as a Buyer, and was a major contributor to the OnForce forums. My web portal and podcast, The Force Field, http://www.theforcefield.net was born from the OnForce forums initially to help OnForce "Pros" grow their own tech businesses inside and outside the platform.

As you know, this is not the way the OnForce forums - or OnForce itself - used to be managed. Jeff Leventhal, the founder of OnForce, originally set up the forums as a way to communicate with the "Pros" and help him tweak the platform to best serve everyone. He and the rest of his team actively participated in forum discussions and he personally interacted with many of us. One thing Jeff never did was run away from or brush off an issue. Whether the answer was a yes, no or maybe, he engaged the "Pros" in real discussion, and they respected him for that, as they still do.

OnForce doesn't do this anymore.

On the evening of December 28, 2010, Jeff Leventhal, the original founder of OnForce, logged into The Force Field Forums to announce the launch of a new service platform called Work Market. I had interviewed Jeff a year or two earlier on The Force Field podcast (Episodes 24 and 25, The Story of OnForce) about how he started the company. He had since left OnForce and was working on another project. Near the end of the interview he announced the new project publicly for the first time - a new service platform.

OnForce, who monitors both my show and my site, heard the announcement on the show and, well, to put it mildly, they weren't happy to hear it.

So, when Jeff visited The Force Field Forums on that December evening to talk about Work Market, it caused quite a stir. OnForce Providers who were also members of The Force Field welcomed him and his announcement with open arms. Many of these "Pros" were frustrated with the Buyer-centric direction the OnForce platform was taking (such as the ones Steven mentioned in his article) and were passionately vocal about it in the OnForce forums and in communications with OnForce personnel, only to be ignored or given the run-around. They felt disenfranchised, and to many of them, Jeff's new Work Market platform was a breath of fresh air.

The next morning, December 29, 2010, OnForce booted these "Pros" from their forums and immediately deactivated their "Pro"

Welcome to the OnForce Digital Sweatshop. For those of you who are new to the OnForce model, it is nothing but a sweatshop for computer technicians. OnForce created a network of technicians whether they are licensed, certified, educated, non educated, skilled or non-skilled, professional or non-professional, with experience or no experience at all - THEY ALL FALL IN THE SAME BOAT and they compete with each other on the same level. Their target is to minimize work order rate and fees paying less and less and less as more techs like you join in and compete with others. In you guys' case you have to remember we're talking about Apple. There are only few professional skilled techs who work on Apple and out of the few, only a minority of them are actually licensed and certified by Apple. Now through OnForce you'll have a number of non Apple skilled techs work on Apple products for much lower price than a skilled or certified Apple techs would. Many of you who embrace this idea are missing the big picture. You aren't the first one that has happened to. Companies like Pomeroy, HP, AT&T, and just recently Vital Network Services have either lay off their workers and/or abandoned their own network of technicians in order to save money on OnForce. Those companies make huge savings and profits on OnForce. For example HP and AT&T use techs through OnForce paying them a flat fee of $50 to $80 for a work order. By flat fee it means no matter how long the job takes or no matter what your associated cost is - this is the fee you agree to. In addition those companies don't have to pay fair wages, social security income tax, FICA tax and medicare nor do they have to provide proper health insurance or mileage reimbursement. This is the destruction of the IT labor industry, you will make more working for Mc Donald than working and competing with other techs on OnForce. Please join us at onforcesucks.com and see for yourself, read the forum and learn about all the abuses on the OnForce sweatshop. It won't take long before you get burn, when you do you can come to onforcesucks.com to share your stories with several other techs.

What exactly is OnForce?
The new form of sweatshops in America.

OnForce is a national technology sweatshop network that connects service buyers known as IT slave masters with highly skilled service professionals known as IT slaves (They have no power whatsoever once joining the sweatshop, except accept or do not accept work order) — easily, efficiently, and profitably for the IT slave masters.

The OnForce model assembled the largest number of technicians from all across the country professional or non professionals, force them to compete and pay them low wages for high technical work. It surely provides a competitive edge for the slave masters on OnForce such as Promeroy. As OnForce points out to the slave masters AKA Providers "Best of all, since you can set your own price for your service events, you have ultimate flexibility and can effectively manage cost containment." It simply means sweatshop.

I am not a technician, why should I care about this issue?
You should because when you hire a company to come to your business or residence, they give the job to a third party tech on OnForce and advise the tech to tell you that they represent the company. For example AT&T charges up to $200 to service your computer. The technician who comes to your house is not an AT&T employee, he is paid $85 flat fee to provide the service to you. Think about it, if you were dealing with the tech directly you could have paid him/her $100 and in turn you would have saved $100. AT&T get paid $100 by simply having a rep route the work order through OnForce. I bet you didn't know, you feel stupid - don't you?

I am a technician on OnForce, why should I care?
You should because you would have generated more revenue if you were dealing with the providers directly with an actual contract. If you are an individual technician, you could have been hire as an IT specialist with high wage, benefits and a secured job. Because of OnForce sweatshop, more and more high paid IT jobs have disapeared and technicians have been laid off unfairly by company like Pomeroy. See how Pomeroy ripp off their workers with their unfair accounting and payroll practices. Right after they went ahead and join OnForce, now they can continue to abuse technicians with the flat fee rate scam like they have done to me

I completely agree with Steven Sande. I find it very odd that every time I would ask Apple regarding the reasons behind OnForce, they would reply by saying "we need more quality control". If anything, OnForce is a way of going backwards and completely aggravating the client and the service provider. If I wanted to work with OnForce, I might as well get a job with the Geek Squad, where I can make a hourly salary, company health care, not have to pay my yearly LLC payment, liability insurance, and not have to pay for ongoing training. I'm very disappointed with Apple, with all the latest news, it screams greed.

The moment the ACN announced OnForce, this is what I thought would happen. Apple wanted a way to see if they could make money from service, without having to spend the money to find out. They lure OnForce into being the referral service to see if it can be done. Once OnForce demonstrates there's a market, Apple thinks "hey, why should OnForce get that huge referral fee on our backs? We can do it instead."

I think JointVenture is simply Apple terminating its contact with OnForce, and running its own referral service instead. This way, it doesn't have to train new personnel, or hire more Geniuses. The ACNs are already there, waiting to be hired. And Apple keeps the money that OnForce was making.

Sure, OnForce gets screwed, but Apple always does parasitical things like this. Remember back in the 90s, when Apple used to promise lifetime support on their Macs? When Jobs terminated that, the FTC sued. Apple paid, but still canceled the lifetime support, effective reneging on their promise to those customers who bought those computers.

OnForce will sue, and Apple will buy them off with some settlement, and they'll eat OnForce's lunch. I believe this has been Apple's plan all along.

Partnering with Apple is like being the frog, with Apple the scorpion. You always get stung in the end.

Some more comments, this one emailed to me from an anonymous ACN member:

"We've only done one OnForce job. It was a terrible experience, most of all because we needed to follow up with the client to make sure everything was running smoothly. We contacted OnForce and asked them repeatedly to call the client on the issue, but they did not do so. So we have no idea if the client got what she wanted.

The worst part, though, was finding out that OnForce is ripping off consumers, too. We all know they take 10 percent of what they pay the consultant, but I was unaware that they were charging the clients even more than that. Our client claimed that she had to pay OnForce $150 per hour for our services, and our take-home pay from that was a little less than $80. How many non-Server consultants do you know who charge $150 per hour? So the clients are getting reamed, we're getting reamed, and the level of service goes down. Wonderful."

In addition, if this rumor that Apple Genius types will be going out to service new business / prosumer accounts, you can be damned sure that someone within the ACN ranks is going to be talking to a lawyer about a class action lawsuit.

TUAWSteve

Onforce a complete train wreck! I will not be renewing my ACN membership.

Take a look at this article.

http://www.9to5mac.com/53185/apple-geniuses-to-go-on-site-with-joint-venture

Anonymous ACN is exactly right, but before OnForce, we had a situation where our local Apple Stores were referring to one or two firms only, and they got all the business. We've spent a lot of time over the last year fixing mistakes made by these other companies, so perhaps OnForce is the only way to give competent consultants a fair shot at the business.

Why would Apple employees constantly refer work to incompetent consultants? Your guess is as good as ours.