Mary Percat

Apple Canada sales manager Mary Percat noted that the success may be in part due to the limited number of channels where the Apple TV can sell.The device's shop presence is deliberately limited to those resellers that can properly demonstrate the hardware to stores, she says, and will be expanded mainly when extra content is available through iTunes.

Apple Canada sales manager Mary Percat noted that the success may be in part due to the limited number of channels where the Apple TV can sell.The device's shop presence is deliberately limited to those resellers that can properly demonstrate the hardware to stores, she says, and will be expanded mainly when extra content is available through iTunes.

"iPod brought life back to Apple," said Mary Percat, national sales manager of resellers at Apple Canada. "PC customers are buying iPod.It's an opportunity for resellers to sell a new Mac product (to them).Resellers have a primed customer base to sell to that they didn't before."

Apple said there won't be significant changes to its go-to-market strategy with this release, which is scheduled to ship later this month.

"There's no particular change to our channel strategy," said Percat."It's an opportunity for national retailers like Best Buy and London Drugs as well."

The desktop is available through Apple directly, Ingram Micro and EMJ, and national retailers such as Best Buy and London Drugs.Percat added the number of orders to date have been "very good."
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Percat said Apple is also aiming the product at resellers who specifically sell to small and medium markets.

"SMB customers still need e-mail, access to the Internet and Microsoft Word.The ease of use is still there," she said.

It also informed recipients that Mary Percat, currently channel strategy manager at Apple Canada, has accepted the position of national sales manager, resellers.Percat declined several requests for an interview, offering the following written statement instead:

Mary Percat, Channel Manager Apple Canada on Dec. 24, 2003 by MacHeadCase
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For Mary Percat, this past year has borne the fruit of her labour.

Percat, channel strategy and development manager for Apple Canada, has been instrumental in developing a new channel for Apple Canada and recruiting new VARs in enterprise and storage markets.

"This has been a really cutting year for all these product announcements and the growth of our products," said Percat.

At a time when many of Apple's competitors are downsizing, she's proud that Apple decided to invest rather than cut back.
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Percat, who has watched Apple's history throughout her 17-year career in the IT industry, says Apple's channel reflected those types of products.

At the beginning of the year, Apple had a base of resellers who serviced its existing print and publishing market.

She, however, saw a need to develop a new channel and go after VARs with expertise in servicing the enterprise market.
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"The price points are so aggressive and the performance and value that an enterprise customer would get from these products is so significant we believe we slowly will see great success with these products over time," said Percat.

Xserve RAID's UNIX operating systems allow Apple to talk to chief information officers (CIO) in very different contexts.

"We can talk to CIOs about security as UNIX is the most stable and secure operating system," said Percat."We speak to CIOs' key concerns given what's happening in the world with terrorism, viruses and worms."

One of Apple's most recent product launches, Panther, the newest version of Macintosh's OS X, also has UNIX underpinnings, making it easier to administrate both Mac and Windows systems on the same network, and therefore opening it up to a whole new market.

"OS has a really robust functionality that's eligible to the enterprise customer," said Percat.
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Looking back, Percat says with certainty that it was the right decision to enter these two markets.

"We're seeing very good success here and we have a lot of customers coming to us," she said."A few years ago, they would have shunned us."

Despite Percat's success in building a new channel for Apple in Canada, she admits that a major roadblock was talking to resellers about UNIX.

"The challenge was for them to believe that the company is committed in this direction and that the products have the high level of functionality and value that they could be confident in," said Percat.

"Once we overcame those, it was interesting how enthusiastic and supportive the new channel partners became."

Percat found the latter the most rewarding aspect of it.

Mary Percat Channel Strategy Development Manager

"These types of products provided access to new customers looking for specific notebook solutions," said Mary Percat, channel strategy manager at Apple Canada. "Apple's authorized resellers were able to capture a sales opportunity in the notebook sector that Apple had created with the launch of these innovative products."