[G4] Intel vs PPC

[Brian Deuel]

On Feb 19, 2009, at 9:34 PM, Eric Smith wrote:

> Agreed, at the top of the line there's no comparison.
> But at the middle of the line it's a different story.
> For a headless Mac there's nothing between the Mac Pro
> and the mini, nothing at all that compares to the
> affordability and expandability that the G4s used to
> provide. I wouldn't go to an iMac because of the
> integrated display and inability to make upgrades,
> and as I said it's mostly laptop parts anyway.
> Apple could make a decent midrange system but they
> choose not to.

They *could* do it, but my theory is that that they would make the  
same margins on a "headless" Mac as they do on their other machines.  
If they were to price it at an amount similar to a similarily-specced  
Dell or HP, there would be no profit in it. Of course, it would sell  
like mad, and Apple would then join the race to the bottom.

My other theory is that if they would price it at an amount that would  
generate the profit margins that they're used to, say $1200-$1300...  
oh boy... you think people compare homebuilt systems to Macs and bitch  
about Apple's prices now? There'd be blood in the streets.

Brian