“A new Wintel prototype that openly apes Apple Computer’s popular Mac mini is due out this week, sources told Wired News, giving Intel a showcase to prove its chips are a match for anyone when it comes to tiny PC designs,” Simon Burns reports for Wired News. “Working prototypes of the Mac mini look-alike running Microsoft Windows and based on Intel’s Pentium M CPU have already been built by Taiwan-based PC maker AOpen, according to two sources in Taiwan’s PC manufacturing industry who have seen them. These sources added that the prototype was built at Intel’s request, and will be unveiled here at the Computex trade show, which runs May 31 through June 4.”
Burns reports, “Apple has been using the Mac mini to encourage users of Intel-based PCs running Windows to ‘switch,’ a campaign Intel hopes to blunt. But analysts said they don’t see big consumer demand for a clone of the stylish and popular box, or much of a threat to Apple. ‘I don’t think the two — Mac mini and whatever Intel puts out — are really in the same market; that is, of course, unless Apple starts running OS X on x86 hardware,’ said IDC analyst Roger Kay.”
Full article here.
A image of the AOpen XC Cube Mini is here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple leads, Wintel follows, as usual.
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