Service Contracts

Do you have a service contract for anything? Do you know what one is?

A service contract is essentially a variation on an extended warranty. Apple Care is one that is immensely valuable. For a few hundred dollars, you get protection on your laptop in the event that your machine dies, almost for any reason. Repairs too.

Also from from Apple is Pro Care, which, for $99 a year, means you can not only schedule time to go into an Apple store to get expert help for your machine, and expedited repairs, but you can also get free training for many of the applications you use, and if you've found the Apple Store Genius Bars filled to capacity whenever you try to schedule an appointment the day of, you know that you'd love to schedule it days in advance -- when it's most convenient for you, not when there happens to be an opening.

For my home office, I have a type of service contract called a preventative maintenance agreement with my heating and air-conditioning company. For $250 a year, they come out and check my system and properly set it for Winter and then again for Summer. If it needs replacement parts, Freon, or other non-major work, they cover it. If my condenser or central unit goes down, they put me in priority line to get it replaced at a discount, and the labor charges to do so are included. When that happened, I checked, and the price they were charging me for the unit alone was less than I could find it at Home Depot, and the vendor's charge included the install. I also pay a fee every month to my security system services provider so that whenever there is a problem with a sensor, they come out - for free - and repair it, or replace it.

Adobe offers a two year maintenance agreement as a part of their Transactional Licensing Program (TLP) that allows you to pay one price and secure maintenance releases and however many upgrades occur during the term of the agreement. It's available through whomever is your preferred Adobe partner.

When you have tools that you cannot operate without, having coverage and cost controls to limit your losses and expedite the return to normal operations can make a world of difference.

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