Sydney Mac support centre back on track

AppleCentre Taylor Square chief Ben Morgan has claimed his Mac support centre launch is set for the end of June, after reshuffling renovations to cut short an expected delay until 1 August.

Morgan, director of AppleCentre Taylor Square in Sydney, said the initial opening date for its taylorsquareacademy was 1 July, but on filing commercial development plans Morgan discovered the proposed Flinders Street site was listed with the Heritage Trust.

The retailer had rejigged its development plans to suit Heritage Trust requirements, and had initially thought that would take one month. However, it now believed they could be completed in less time, he said..

“It had been delayed but we managed to pick up three and a half weeks,” he said. “It's back on track. I think we'll be making the end of this month instead of 1 August.”

taylorsquareacademy would offer Mac support and training -- services that were sorely lacking in the Apple reseller community. Customers were sick of being told to ring Apple every time they had any issues, Morgan said.

Apple resellers in general were struggling and a big reason for that could be lack of customer service, he said.

So far, customer support for the idea had been extremely positive, Morgan said.

taylorsquareacademy -- which would be situated in trendy inner-east Sydney suburb Darlinghurst -- would also offer theatrette facilities for general community use and aim at becoming a local hub for Mac users and local creatives, he said.

The theatrette would have 15 to 30 seats and sufficient workstations to cater for an average class size of 10 to 25 customers wanting Apple training.

AppleCentre Taylor Square is in the next-door building. The new centre will increase AppleCentre Taylor Square's street frontage to 350 metres.

The retailer was partnering other vendors such as Microsoft, Adobe and Macromedia to create a more rounded offering for the support centre, Morgan said.