Apple's competition in the Digital Hub strategy

Holy cannoli! Take a look at AlienWare's new Navigator Media Center computer:

http://www.alienware.com/main/system_pages/navigator.asp

Cool looking computer by PC standards, but not as cool as the iMac Plus the price is $1699 without a monitor, so it definitely isn't cheap. To get a 17" widescreen monitor like the iMac would bump up the price to $2300. In terms of features, the Navigator includes a TV tuner, Tivo-like software, and a remote, but only has a Combo drive and not a Superdrive. Plus I'm sure that the "Media Center" apps are not as elegant as Apple iApps, though I haven't seen them (beyond the screenshots on AlienWare's site). The Navigator is undoubtedly the higher-performing gaming machine, too since it includes an NVIDIA® GeForce4 Ti 4200 w/64MB and Intel's latest CPU with Hyperthreading (they list a Quake III frame rate of 266 at 1024x768)

What do people think about the threat of these new Media Center PC's to Apple's Digital Hub Strategy?

Yeah, I see what you're saying. It' exciting to see that Philips is getting behind Rendezvous, since they also have the same vision of digital devices working seamlessly together. A stereo could seamlessly play an MP3 from an iMac or an iPod, for example. Or a Mac could send a slideshow from iPhoto or a movie from iMovie or iDVD to a TV (or maybe some kind of Tivo/Cable Box/DVD Player), without even having to burn it to disc first.

Devices working seamlessly together is definitely more compelling than an all-in-one Media Center, but Microsoft is also pursing a "Smart Objects" strategy of networked digitally-enabled devices, so we'll see where they go with that...

P.S. Sheesh! Check out the 200 Watt power supply on that Alienware machine! The power supply must take up 1/2 the space in that tiny case. That thing must be loud, unlike the nice quiet iMac.