Breaking New Ground with a Small Footprint: Mac mini

By Jonathan Berohn

For years now, Apple's number one marketing challenge has been convincing people that all of the money they spent on their PCs is worth just throwing away.  Needless to say, that probably goes quite a long way toward explaining why Apple has had a hard time winning PC users over to the Macintosh.  Finally, though, Apple seems to have stumbled onto a way to get those reluctant PC owners to take the plunge without having to take out a second mortgage.

The Mac Premium

Mac has always been know for their high end systems that carry high end price tags.  For the Mac converts, getting what you pay for has always been worth the premium Macs commanded over PCs.  For the PC user contemplating a switch, the high cost hasn't been quite so easy to swallow.  For years, Apple has been happy to sacrifice market share to keep the core enthusiasts happy.  Now with the huge success of the iPod, though, Apple has turned its attention to turning iPod users into full-fledged Mac users.

Enter the mini

Apple's new stroke of genius is the Mac mini.  No longer do you have to drop $1,000 and up just for the bare bones Mac.  The new Mac mini starts an unprecedented (for Apple anyway) $499.  Now, make no mistake, this is bare bones-no monitor, mouse, or keyboard.  But that is actually the key bit of marketing here.  You can pull your new Mac mini out of the box, plug in your old PC monitor, mouse, and keyboard, and voila-you're in business and ready to go.  For a mere $499, you not only get all the benefits of owning a Mac-you also get reuse your old PC peripherals so you don't feel like you're throwing away money-or at least as much money as if you'd scrapped your whole PC system.

What You Get

For the Mac veteran, the Mac mini probably won't have much allure past the fact that it really is tiny.  For $499 you don't get a whole lot of memory, hard disk space, or even a super drive.  What you do get is the famous Mac user-friendly interface, and an OS X that just doesn't crash. High end users will at least want to upgrade to the higher end mini, but for most home users-especially low end PC clone users, the Mac mini is a great introduction to Macs, and certainly a great first machine for kids.