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4.7GHz IBM Power6 Spotted
Ilgaz notes that The Register has posted benchmark results from Oracle 11i running on four 4.7GHz Power6 chips. Quoting: "The speedy chips confirm IBM's boasting that Power6 would arrive near 5GHz. They also show that IBM's customers have a lot to look forward to in terms of raw performance." Rumor has it that the Power6 chips will be announced on Tuesday.
A Core2 Duo would also work great in a Mini.
Apple now has tons of options with Intel, yet they still refuse to produce competitive hardware; whichever chips they are using is irrelevant. The future looks like more of the same: insanely priced outdated hardware, so that they can maintain their obscene margins.
I have no problem paying more for Apple hardware, but right now, they are simply gouging customers. What's worse is that none of that revenue is being used to further the Mac platform, as is evidenced by their almost nonexistent R&D investments. (Which work out to far less per machine than it costs for any PC OEM to bundle a copy of Windows.)
Especially once you go into businesses. The difference in price between Apple and Microsoft starts getting huge once you spec out an environment for >50 people. With Apple you know your clients cost you $129, your server $999, Remote Desktop for $499, no limits, everything integrated with Kerberos + LDAP. With Microsoft you got that and then you have to start calculating CAL's for Exchange, CAL's for your Terminal Server, CAL's and server licenses for your SMS and WUS, and each little piece that will make life easier as the admin costs you an extra CAL which is all included in the Server+Client+RemoteDesktop licenses on Mac.
Of course, the Windows environment you've just described (Exchange, Terminal Server, etc) is _vastly_ more functional than the OS X environment you described, so it's not surprising in the least it would cost more.
Next to that, the average Windows machine lasts 3 years before it get's old and slow. I've seen G3's running OS X 10.4 without a hitch, G4's are mainstream in many companies and most haven't even gone to Intel yet.
If someone is happy with a G3 or G4 running OS X, they'll be just as happy with a P2, P3 or P4 running Windows XP. It's *far* kinder to older hardware than OS X is.