dsnort said:
Because they are not common.
That is circular reasoning. Why aren't PC-users buying AIO's? Because they are not common. Why aren't they common? Because users are not buying them.
My point being that you argued that a minitower Mac would sell because minitower PCs are the most popular form.
There are lots of PC-people who are looking at buying a Mac. They already have their PC's, and they would like to get a Mac instead. So what are their options?
- They get rid of their PC-hardware, and get an iMac
- They get functionally limited Mac Mini, and use their current hardware with it
- They get a second mortage on their house and buy a Mac Pro
Are any of those ideals solutions? No they are not.
It really is quite simple. Apple just needs one more product in their product-matrix to cover all their bases. Mini can work with users existing hardware, but it's capabilities are limited, and it's quite slow (relatively speaking). iMac is faster (but not _fast_), but it's even less versatile (you get a screen with it). Mac Pro has the versatility, but it's overkill in some areas (quad-core and high price). There is a HUGE gap between Mac Mini and Mac Pro, as far as versatility is concerned. Either you get somewhat versatile (but not expandable) machine that is slow, or you get an uber-expensive quad-core machine.
Same as above, plus my feeling and having seen people buy these bundled machines to replace a current PC, monnitor and all.
Yes, they are buying bundled machines, but they are NOT all-in-one's. If they want to, they could expand the capabilities of the machine. If they want to, they could replace the screen with something else. That is simply not possible with the iMac. There is a HUGE difference between a computer that comes bundled with a monitor, and a computer that has a built-in monitor.
I quess different people look at it differently. To me this computer is very fast, almost instantaneous, don't know that going any faster would be beneficial to me. Never have to wait on the graphics either. Now, if I needed it for gaming or some other graphics intensive usage, I'd probably look at a MacPro.
But why should people be forced to look at MacPro? That machine is totally overkill in some areas, 98% of users do NOT need quad-core machine, even if they were powerusers.
If selling X number of minitowers costs you Y number of iMac or MacPro sales, is it worth it? To date, these market numbers have not been shared with any of us.
Would it really matter to Apple if they got their money from selling Mac Pro's or Mac Pro Mini's? Either way, they get their money. And I bet that the MPM would make quite a few PC-users in to Apple's customers. They might not use OS X, but they would use Windows instead. And since Apple is a hardware-company, there shouldn't be any issues with that since Apple would still get their money.
Why is everyone so concerned about minitower reducing the sales of Mac Pro, whereas at the same time we are being told that "if you want a minitower, buy a Dell"? In the former case, Apple would not lose money, since people would still be buying Apple-hardware. In the latter case, Apple would be losing sales.
Fact of a matter is that PC-users have grown accustomed to certain type of machines: minitowers. Closest thing Apple has to offer is the Mac Pro, but it costs so much, that many users will simply say "Instead of buying a machine that costs over 2000 bucks, I'm just going to buy this $1300 PC-minitower instead which suits my needs just fine."
