“Will it matter? Will the world really change now that Apple is rolling out a sub-$500 Mac named after a cute little car? Will the Mac Mini have any impact on corporate IT at all? The answers are pretty clear: Yes, no and sure, but not the way Mac lovers might expect,” Frank Hayes writes for ComputerWorld. “Let’s get the obvious analysis out of the way upfront: A $500 price tag won’t make corporate IT shops crave Macs. Heck, if Apple gave them away with a $500 bill taped to each machine, we still wouldn’t use them. The transition costs would be too high. But will the Mac Mini have an impact on us? Probably. And it’ll likely almost all be good news.”
Hayes writes, “We’re used to writing off Apple as irrelevant because Macs don’t run Windows software. (Strictly speaking, they can, but it’s usually not worth the trouble to make that happen.) There might be some Macs in marketing or some other odd corner of our corporate world. But Macs — with a measly 3% market share in desktop computers, by units shipped — aren’t mainstream. They’re not for us. That’s corporate IT gospel.”
Hayes writes, “But notice: Even at just 3%, there are still only seven companies in the world that sell more computers than Apple does. And most of those seven companies are sweating, because there’s not much they can do to innovate or differentiate in the lock-step, beige-box game… So if Apple wants to abandon floppy disks or sell computers in funny colors or shapes, it can. In contrast, PC makers have been trying since 1999 to get away from the beige tower and legacy features. So far, they haven’t even managed to get rid of parallel printer ports… Where Macs lead, PCs follow… For corporate IT, there’s no downside to the Mini. And any upside will take a year or so to hit us.”
Full article here.
Unitbob: What part of the word MAJOR do you not understand? Cappuccino PC? Pu-lease
And did you notice that the only machine they sell that is as small as the Mac mini USES A PENTIUM III. Yes, I said a Pentium III.
Pathetic.
magic word: coming …no comment.
Dave H:
Actually, the 0.8 often represents the learning-impaired company accountant who never looks beyond the sticker price of the computer.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
Re: Unitbob and cappuccinpc.com
Just checked out cappuccinopc, Unitbob. Sure, you can get all kinds of barebone systems for under $500, but by the time you include the add-ons required to match the mini’s minimal specs (256MB RAM, 40GB 2.5″ hard drive @4200 rpm, CDRW/DVD-ROM drive and Windows XP), your sub-$500 pc is over $800.
Granted, you can save by going Linux rather than windows (I won’t even get into the OSX vs. windows debate), but you’re still comparing apples and oranges because the mini has faster front side bus, faster ram and larger l2 cache than the sub-$500 pcs I saw at cappuccinopc.
On the pro-pc side, yes you’re getting more expandability for your money. Some of the pcs support 2 GB of ram, and have more ports. By the time you plug your keyboard into a mini, you’re down to one USB and one FireWire port. The cappuccinos also give you more flexibility on the kind of hard drive they will accommodate (faster, larger 3.5″ drives, including serial ata) and pci expansion.
Is that expandability worth the extra bucks? That’s up to the user, but for what you’re getting when you buy the mini, I’ve yet to see anything in its class.
Actually, the 0.8 often represents the learning-impaired company accountant who never looks beyond the sticker price of the computer.
MCCFR, truer words are rarely spoken! It’s been my experience that the expression ‘you get what you pay for’ never stands a chance against the ever-reliable ‘the project was awarded to the lowest bidder’.
http://www.pricewatch.com/ > click on ‘PC Windows’ or ‘PC No OS’. There is a list of shops and manufactures a mile long with PCs in the sub $200 range, complete machines, they’ll even throw in a mouse and keyboard, and they are all faster than a mac mini.
The fact that these are not “Major” manufactures is the beauty of PCs, they don’t have to be IBM or HP, any company can make them and sell them. If you’re not sure about quality buy Intel chips only lots of people make Intel chipset motherboards and are very reputable, and they are NOT Intel (Abit, Asus, Iwill etc.).
As for “Major” I spent about a minute looking on http://www.dell.com and found this :
399.99 comes with a 19 CRT or 17 LCD and a printer, funny now the ‘entry’ desktop is a 2.8GHz. Guess if you have an entire company 4x the size of Apple just making processors they make them a little higher quality.
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dimen_2400?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn
Every stat on this PC is better than the mac-mini. That is unless you’re a fanatic and truly believe that a 700MHz PPC is actually faster than a 3.4GHz P4. In this case there is no PC made that can out run an Apple IIGS.
Realistically the mini doesn’t even come close to the price a PC@1.7GHz/256mb/40HDD would go for, not that anyone still sells a model that old. You’re really just paying for an off white case with a little fruit on it.
“Where Apple leads, Wintel follows years later”
Does that apply to Fast user switching, Multithreaded Apps, Liquid Cooled Systems, Hypertransport Bridges, MultiCore Processors, terminal services / RDC, event viewers, system policies, thumbprint authentication, Pen/ink recognition, voice recognition, Compatability Modes, system restore, FLASH Media Players, Business Productivity, and full integration ..NO Its doesnt.
Brought to you by “step” as in “If you’re a flamer, step off.”
No IT Man, as I keep having to explain to people, $499 buys you OSX and iLife. Use it for one thing only, some of the time, of completely replace your Windows machine with it. It’s up to you.
The hardware just comes with it as an extra.
Excuses, Excuses
Brought to you by Effort….”I put no effort into securing a Windows Network of 1500+ clients”…. : )
Laziness is a virtue…WoooHooo
And what ugly, feature poor shitboxes those PCs are, IT Man. Firewire? Not likely. Quality video sub-system? Not likely. Faster CPU? Well, that’s debateable and you’re still saddled with XP, that enormous, bloated rotting corpse of an OS that it is.
And of course Dell can make a cheaper low end PC, with all of the above plus the corporate and environmental ethics of a neo-liberal.
No, with Apple (I’m a switcher BTW) I’m buying the whole, seamless experience; the whole elegant package.
Hassle free IT.
When you look at those ‘cheap’ PCs, you need to consider why they are so cheap. Things like the conditions, wages and treatment that the component assemblers work under. How do these manufacturers treat the environment? All of a sudden when you start to factor these things in, the PC is not just cheap, it’s also nasty. That’s another reason why Apple hardware is that little bit more expensive when we see the ticket price.
In my eyes, the hardware, even pre Mac Mini, is a bargain.
Oh and when you add up the prices of the excellent and extensive software bundle you get, it equals the price of the Mini itself. So you’re buying the software, and getting a powerful little feature rich computer for free.
IT Man, your name suits you well. You’re the absolute picture of most IT people in the world: short-sighted, and ignorant. As for the megahertz myth, even Intel has announced that it’s true. No one ever said a 700mhz PowerPC equals a 3.4ghz Pentium, but a 700mhz PowerPC chip is a hell of a lot faster than a 700mhz Pentium.
IT Man, I have some experience with those $300 PCs. Bought an almost new eMachine (with monitor) at a garage sale for $2. The owner said it just got slower and slower and finally wouldn’t work at all. I took it home and wiped the hard drive and re-installed Windows. What a nightmare! Inside it was the most horrendous conglomeration of obscure, clearance bin hardware I’ve ever encountered. Drivers were either non-existent or didn’t work, and the MB, etc. were not compatible with the standard stuff from my spare PC parts bin. I ended up deciding I’d paid too much and tossed it.
Post all the insults you want, you’re still going to be wrong at the end of the day.
” What part of the word MAJOR do you not understand? Cappuccino PC? Pu-lease”
Apple isn’t exactly a major manufacturer either with less than 3% market share. They are a small niche market product.
“Yes, I said a Pentium III. Pathetic.” That’s exactly what I think of the G4 processor.
WTF Apple is like a 30 billion dollar company.. unitbob.. get real..
The P4 is about the same as the G4 actually… My G4 1Ghz is the same as a P4 2.6 Ghz
Recommend this Mini pc to all mini pc lovers.
The smallest pc in the world. Car pc as well.
http://www.sd-omega.com/