We've been through this before, and I still have no idea why you don't get it ....
Why is it important where the damn motherboard comes from??!
shamino said:
Why? Macs are sold with very high profit margins. Do you think Apple will change this policy? Do you think an Intel-designed MB with an Intel chip will cost that much less?
I believe that this is correct. Intel chips apprently have a higher unit costs than PPCs, so if folk think that Macs are going to suddenly become as cheap as PCs, then I think they're in for a rude surprise come next year. Apple will try its damn hardest to maintain its above average margins on each unit sold. They may even hike the price initially to make a bit off the early adopters.
shamino said:
You (and a lot of people) seem to think Apple will be able to take over the world if they'd simply jump on the bandwagon and sell the same PC's that everybody else has been selling for the past 20 years.
Yes, and they've made such a HUGE dent in the market selling proprietary machines haven't they?
Now who better to design a motherboard for an Intel chip, than Intel themselves? Apple? I don't think so. One of the other reasons that Macs have lagged behind Windows boxes in terms of performance, is that Apple's motherboards aren't that much.
Apple is pretty much a form factor design house and not much else; farming out the motherboard to Intel is not a surprise, or a bad decision.
shamino said:
I'm sorry but the logic makes absolutely no sense. Nobody is going to pay extra for an Apple computer, just to be able to run Windows on it.
Yeah, but as Jobs may have realised, no-one will buy a Mac at all, unless they can run run their existing Windows apps on it. So which is the lesser of the two evils?
The only real advantage that the Mac has, is the OS (and even that is a matter of opinion). without IBM's support, the hardware battle has already been lost. Apple is now preparing the Mac community for the day when MacOSX will run on any Intel machine.
The UI
QuickTime
Cocoa
A framework to connect to Apple's future iPod type devices
What runs underneath it is not really that important any more. If Jobs continues with the NeXTStep/OpenStep plan, then a few years down the line, the MacOSX may be a shell running on top of MS Vista, as well/instead of Unix.
gnasher729 said:
If his friends are going to buy Mac Minis, then it will be very difficult for them to spend "over $1000 extra just to get a fancy case and undersized power supply", considering that I can buy a Mac Mini for $499. Now try to get a Windows PC at that size, and you will find that buying a Mac Mini will actually save you a lot of money.
Apple can completely wipe out the whole existing market for small case PCs with the MacMini.
Indeed. And once the sale is made, what folk do with it is their business really.