“If you caught the Mac Pro’s introduction during last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, you know that Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president for worldwide product marketing, punctuated his demo of the new high-end desktop by uttering the ‘D’ word—Dell. Specifically, Schiller brought up Dell to compare its price to the standard 2.66GHz Mac Pro Quad’s $2,499 price tag. By Schiller’s math, a similarly configured Dell Precision 690 would run you $3,448—around $950 more than the Mac Pro,” Dan Frakes reports for Macworld.
Frakes reports, “That’s an eye-catching figure, especially in light of the widely held perception that Macs are more expensive than their PC counterparts. But is it an accurate figure? To double-check Apple’s math, I went on a virtual shopping spree. My mission: configure a Mac Pro and a comparably-featured Dell model and see how their prices measured up.”
Frakes found that “the significance of the Mac Pro, from a price perspective, is not that it’s debatably price-competitive with somewhat similar offerings from Dell (and other Windows-PC vendors); rather, it’s that the Mac Pro is the first Mac in a long, long time that is unquestionably less expensive than its Windows counterparts in the same market segment.”
Full article, with price breakdown chart showing an Apple Mac Pro that’s US$1,347 less than a comparably-equipped Dell (plus the Dell can’t run Mac OS X) here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Microsoft Windows five times more expensive for users than Apple’s Mac OS X – August 15, 2006
Apple Mac Pro with/ 20” Cinema Display less expensive than Dell Precision 690 sans monitor – August 10, 2006
Bear Stearns: Apple’s new Mac Pro, Xserve pricing well below comparable Dell systems – August 09, 2006
Apple cuts prices across entire Cinema Display line – August 08, 2006
Dell warns of earnings miss; shares plunge 15% – July 21, 2006
Survey shows big jump in consumer interest in buying Apple Mac; Dell takes steep slide – July 06, 2006
The Wired 40: Apple #2, Microsoft drops to #36, Dell falls off list – June 28, 2006
Time Magazine on Apple’s 13-inch MacBook: ‘Dell and HP should be very worried’ – June 07, 2006
Apple passes Dell in market value – May 02, 2006
Dude, you got a Dell? What are you, stupid? Only Apple Macs run both Mac OS X and Windows! – April 05, 2006
