Do you see a place for the Mac mini in regular IT department purchasing plans?
Why not? It is a great opportunity to keep your investment in your flat screen monitor. And throw away your PC to get something more elegant and save some desk space. Interoperability is all there now.
Also, it will probably fall below most people’s capital expenditure requirements, so they can probably just expense them, meaning you can now buy Macs without going through a large purchase acquisition.
So who do you expect will buy the Mac mini?
Anybody who wants that low cost entry point into the Mac platform. Consumers, educational institutions, schools and companies too. Our core focus to begin with is schools and education markets. If you want a Mac for video production in a classroom, any school can now buy one for £300 (with the educational discount). Everybody is talking about creativity in the classroom. We have the software, but needed a cheaper platform to run it on, as that has been a stumbling block.
There is immense price competition on hardware. Dell is very aggressive there, so we see this as our answer to that.
Also you could carry this around in a bag it is that small. All you need it to make sure the screen, keyboard and mouse are already there at your destination.
Education is hugely important for us, it is in our DNA. The [education] minister talked yesterday about the importance of IT across the curriculum. Well we have worked really hard of the past years to make it work. The future is here now, it is just unevenly distributed.
Finally, a lot of people are understandably worried about upgrade options on the Mac mini and just how permanent decisions at the point of purchase are. Can you clarify this?
You will be able to upgrade to Bluetooth and Airport with kits after purchase, and take it in to a Mac authorised reseller for memory upgrades. The optical drive will not be an upgrade option, so whatever you specify at the point of purchase you'll be stuck with. Of course at this price, you'll be able to just buy a new computer when you're ready to upgrade.
