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In the early 90's it was Apple. Sun is a perennial favorite now. I never read one of these things saying Hayes or Zeos would get bought or go under. Where's my Hayes DSL adapter?

Zeos merged with Micron and now they are Crucial and MPC. Now guess who's in chapter 11? MPC/Micron is.

What poll foresaw Digital going to Compaq or Compaq going to HP? Magitronic sure seems to have failed. eMachines was bought. Alienware is owned by Dell.

These polls are silly. Some of these companies have more cash reserves than small countries have budgets. There's always a risk of a company large or small failing, but this poll means nothing.

This is not Micron, this is: MPC: http://www.mpccorp.com/ that is going out of business.

Both notebooks are somewhat expensive and so different that comparing "value" depends almost entirely on what unique features the buyer values more. At this price level, I'd probably choose an MPC TransPort T2500 (comes with Office Basic and 3 years warranty/support by default).

Another All-In-One that I've been using for years is from MPC http://www.mpccorp.com/commercial/store/desktops/product_detail/clientpro_434.html. Before Dell even dreamed about an All-in-One, MPC came out with this great PC. They couldn't keep up with demand (which sucked when I was trying to order them), while my Dell rep was telling me that they used to have one, but there was no market for it. Idiots. Then Apple came out with the new iMac and suddenly Dell decides "Oh shit, they're selling those like crazy! We should come out with one too!!". *sigh*

Between Apple and Dell's All-in-Ones, I'd choose MPC.

Expensive, but well built and assembled mostly in the US to my knowledge. I recommend doing more research and not just taking my word for it. :) Good luck.
http://www.mpccorp.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPC_Corporation

There's a mandatory recycling fee for monitors in California. Screens between 15" and 35" have an $8 fee (CRT and LCD). This only started last year, so it's misleading to say that just because you were charged a state-imposed tax on a newly purchased system, that it wasn't "free" to recycle your POS Pentium-III system. Heck, everyone has to charge the tax, but you don't see Fry's begging to take back your old systems*.

From the .gov site: http://www.erecycle.org/fee.htm
Or clearer details: http://www.mpccorp.com/about/california_fee.html

* Actually, they might. I didn't check.

My neighbour recently bought a Micron Transport 1000 (http://www.mpccorp.com/smallbiz/store/notebooks/o verview_transport.html) because he liked the features... Additionally, its wholly USA based (incl. customer service)... (this also probably influenced his buying decision) After he had a faulty motherboard, I was asked to see if I can repair it... coz he is not into hardware.. I called their rep... Couldnt understand the strong 'chinese' or 'asian' accent... I finally had to request her to hand the call over to somebody who speaks English with a an 'understandable' accent.. That is my experience...

There seems to be lots of SATA-RAID based iSCSI SAN devices available nowadays.. Some links to products I have seen:

http://www.equallogic.com./ They make nice SATA-raid based iSCSI SAN devices with all the features you could expect (volumes, snapshots, array/volume-expansion, hotswap, redundant controllers, redundant fans, etc).

http://www.equallogic.com/pages/products_PS100E.ht m
14 250G sata disks, 3U, 3.5 TB of raw storage.

http://www.equallogic.com/pages/products_PS300E.ht m
14 500G sata disks, 3U, 7 TB of raw storage.

http://www.equallogic.com/pages/products_PS2400E.h tm
56+ TB

Looks good. I have not yet used them myself :)

Another iSCSI SATA SAN possibility:
http://www.mpccorp.com/smallbiz/store/servers/prod uct_detail/dataframe_420.html
16 sata disks, review:
http://www.infoworld.com/MPC_DataFrame_420/product _53700.html?view=1&curNodeId=0

This company also has SATA iSCSI SAN devices:
http://www.dynamicnetworkfactory.com/products.asp/ section/Product~Categories/category/iSCSI/options/ IPBank/drivetype/L~Series/formfactor/Integrated/in face/SATA~-~Serial~ATA

iSCSI SAN comparison:
http://www.networkcomputing.com/story/singlePageFo rmat.jhtml?articleID=170702726

There are also software iSCSI target solutions for use with your own/custom hardware.
http://iscsitarget.sourceforge.net/ for building linux-based iSCSI target/SAN.

If you are familiar with iSCSI targets / iSCSI SAN devices please post your comments!

I recommend taking a look at MPC (formerly known as Micron PC). Last time I checked, they still haven't outsourced their support (all support in the United States).

Oh, please... 'Price up something equivalent to a Mac' is up there with 'Windows gives you the BSOD every day' as a line that even the trolls are getting fed up with.

Most people don't want to be restricted by Apple's limited number of configurations at each price point. Price up a Mac equivalent to sub-$1000 desktop PC with expansion slots and without a monitor. You can't because Mac desktops below the PowerMac line don't have expansion slots and force you to use their built-in monitor (the underpowered Mac mini doesn't count). Price up an Apple notebook equivalent to a Celeron M or Pentium M notebook. You can't because Apple notebooks use an outdated CPU.

Try pricing up a PowerMac G5 with something equivalent to a Dell OptiPlex GX620 Minitower. Or an iMac G5 with something equivalent to an MPC ClientPro 414. You'll see that quality PCs can be significantly less expensive than Macs.

Some models of Micron laptops have had this feature for a while.