There are half a dozen versions of Windows in common use, more if you count the different editions. Microsoft alone has several major and radically different GUI APIs, and there are several common third party ones in addition to that. The notion that Windows is more "consistent" or simpler to target is a joke.
Then why is Windows so ridiculously better at legacy support ?
You've picked a definition of "design" which leads inescapably to the conclusion the Mac OS X is designed to run on any Intel platform.
I have not. Primarily because that's not the conclusion I have even suggested, let alone reached.
You can say that Mac OS X is designed for generic Intel system $X by dint of it successfully compiling to x86 assembly, but I could argue it isn't by dint of its lack of available kexts for the motherboard accoutrements system $X, or the OS's contingent operation on the "Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X.kext" device.
Specific hardware drivers are not - or certainly shouldn't be - part of an OS's design (for a general purpose OS like IS X). Interfaces for the drivers to use ? Sure. The drivers themselves ? Typically not.
You appear to be doing a very good job of destroying a straw man. The _only_ point I have made, is that OS X is not _designed_ to work solely with Apple's hardware lineup, if for no other reason that that would be an incredibly boneheaded thing to do, and Apple's developers clearly aren't that dumb.
An OS designed specifically for a particular set of hardware, is an OS that is substantially more difficult to make work on any other hardware, including future hardware from the same source.
OS X is designed to be portable. It's been ported *at least once* to completely different architecture in its current guise and several times previously when it was called NeXT/OPENSTEP.
And what is the point of having a network channel between these devices and a *display* ? As the GP asked, why do I need ethernet on my display device?
Not a lot. Between those devices and your amplifier with a built-in switch or wireless, on the other hand...
I think you're working too hard to build your argument around the foregone conclusion...
My argument - that OS X is designed to be portable and not tied to a specific hardware range - hasn't changed since the first post. The one you replied to insisting there is no meaningful difference between "designed for" and "only supported on".
The Linux kernel is written in C, which is a language designed to be obfuscated in a binary format.
Begging the question.
As evidenced by the Linux kernel's ability to be built into a binary, it was clearly designed to be distributed in a locked-down format.
Begging the question, non-sequitur.
The license on the tarball I downloaded has little bearing to the actual build and distribution system.
Irrelevant.
In this day and age you'd need to be an awesomely incompetent developer to give away all your changes to the kernel for free.
Irrelevant.
Not exactly the same thing,
Not even *close* to the same thing.
[...] but I think you have to respect the vendor as being the person who says what something is designed to do, [...]
Does Apple say OS X is designed only to be run on their hardware ? If so, in what context ?
[...] and their rights to control their works within the bounds of the law. Don't like it? Change da law.
I have no idea how you get to here from the previous discussion.
Microsoft repeatedly pulls stunts like resetting the default browser back to IE, in addition to not allowing it to be uninstalled.
Yes. That's because it would break the thousands of applications that rely on those shared components to function. Breaking existing applications is something Microsoft is extremely reluctant - often to a fault - to do.
If you were literate, you might understand that no one is requiring Microsoft to support other browsers. Microsoft is being required to make options available.
Why is this Microsoft's problem and not that of the OEMs selling the computers ?
Strictly speaking, Mac OS X is "designed" (in the intel case) to run on an Intel CPU with EFI and a specified closed set of hardware...
No, it's not. As evidenced by it running on different hardware. OS X is - clearly, as it's been ported to a completely different architecture *at least* once - designed to be a portable OS. That means it is *not* designed for even a specific CPU, let alone a specific (or set of specific) computer(s).
Windows isn't "designed" to support a set of hardware as much as it's "designed" to support OEMs writing their own drivers, which has the effect of Microsoft claiming that it "supports" a wide range of hardware, when really all they do is give vendors a platform and the "support" is finally the vendor's problem.
Windows is designed the same way OS X is. To be portable and not tied to specific hardware implementations.
Or maybe I'm conflating support with design, because I consider how you resolve problems to be part of the design of the OS.
You are, and it's not.
In any case, I think it's safe to say that design relates intention, and Mac OS X is only intended to run on Apple-branded hardware.
The label on the front has little bearing on the hardware inside (the part that actually does the whole "run the OS" thing).
I thought your point was that Apple didn't have the technical wherewithal to accomplish the feat of destroying their hardware business, and I'm just saying it's within their power if they wanted to but it really wouldn't benefit them.
No, my point was that (in this day and age) you'd need to be an awesomely incompetent developer to tie your OS *design* to a specific range of hardware platforms.
Honestly, Dell has probelms shipping hardware that runs well for less than $800.
From Dell, for $800 (and that's list price) you get a machine with the same CPU power and RAM as a $2500 Mac Pro. For less than the $1200 price tag of a baseline iMac, you get a Dell Studio XPS more than twice as fast, with half again as much RAM and hard disk space (and again, that's standard retail price - shop smart and you'll do dramatically better).
If Apple officially supports running Leopard on hardware made in 2001, I would think they couldn't lose any customers by having them unofficially install it on hardware many times more powerful than that.
They lose because instead of buying a $2500 Mac Pro, people will buy a $900 Dell Studio XPS that has 95% of the functionality, or a $600 Dell Optiplex that does everything they want for around half the price of an equivalent Mac Mini.
The only people who want a midrange desktop, as opposed to something like a Mac Mini or an iMac, are those that want to be able to upgrade their hardware, but don't want to pay the premium for something like the Mac Pro.
Or most businesses.
Or anyone who doesn't want a screen welded to their machine.
Or anyone who wants to connect 2+ of their own screens.
You say desktop sales make up only 40% ([citation needed]). Has it occurred to you that 99% of that 40% is the kind of towers that Apple refuses to sell ?
Fundamental difference. An OS specifically designed for even a particular version of an AMD or Intel CPU, would quite feasibly not run on any of the others (eg: take advantage of features specific to Core 2). Similarly in terms of specific chipset, NIC, or other hardware implementations.
Supporting many hardware configurations doesn't require "mad skillz," it just requires mongolian hordes of devlopers, and not minding that everyone in the support queue hates you. It would probably also mean the end of the Genius Bar as we know it, and the Genius Bar is the only compelling reason to buy a Mac for a lot of people.
It is not. It is _supported_ only on Apple hardware.
It's amazing the number of Apple zealots who will go on and on about what mad skillz Apple's OS developers have, then turn around and insist they'd be so incompetent as to tie their basic design into particular hardware designs.
In any event, from a component perspective an Apple Mac is a generic PC. Same CPU, same hard disk, same RAM, same chipset, same video card.
As far as the other major OS vendors go, Sun offers Solaris for free, Redhat, Novell and Canonical, likewise with their Linux distros.
Fundamentally different business models.
As a matter of interest though, what's Red Hat's profit margins on their support licenses ?
Symbian OS available for as little as $2.50 per device, though admittedly it is less complex.
What's the profit margin ?
IBM's operating systems (ie, z/OS) cost money, but it's hard to work out their margins, given the state of the mainframe market.
Also a fundamentally different business model.
With the limited number of samples available (due in no small part to Microsoft's own predatory practices), you'd have to say the amortized cost of an operating system should be very low or zero, if support is paid for..
For most customers, the price of Windows *is* "very low or zero". It comes with their computer.
Doesn't have to be an OS. Pick any large and complex piece of commercial software and it should be at least in the same ballpark. SAP, Photoshop, Maya, Oracle Applications Server, Oracle DB, VMWare, etc, etc.
Modal dialog boxes rarely have a use. System modal dialog boxes are evil.
System modal dialogs in Windows are exceptionally rare, and always justified so far as I have seen.
Apple popularized them and they have recanted their heresy. Modal dialog boxes are active evil.
OS X still uses them. The two flagship OSS GUIs - GNOME and KDE - both have modal dialogs. Two of the most high-profile OSS applications - Firefox and OpenOffice - also use modal dialogs.
Microsoft once again, is behind the times.
The implication that Microsoft are the only developers still using modal dialogs and therefore, somehow, "behind the times" is so easily shown to be wrong it doesn't even pass the laugh test.
Say I get prompted to enter a password. I have the password in a text file under the application which has the dialog open. But I can't get to it. Modality for an application is fine but you should still be able to move it around the screen.
GUI-wide modal dialogs in Windows are extremely rare and, in my experience, always justified.
Nobody gets those sort of margins in a competitive market.
Then, since you've obviously done the research, then, perhaps you can give the numbers for some other pieces of similarly complex commercial software to compare and contrast. OS X, Photoshop, SAP, Oracle DB, for example.
To produce ALL the power used in the US now, including all electricity, heating and transportation energy use, requires a patch of solar panels in the southwest desert about 170,000 km^2 assuming 8% efficiency (which is low). That's about the same as the paved area of the USA (160,000 km^2), and about 1/3rd of the desert area.
Does this number account for the fact that Solar, like a government worker, is only useful for about four hours a day ?
That's besides the point. The point is that they're using old crap, putting it in a new package and pushing it to everyone as something completely new.
Are you seriously trying to suggest Microsoft is the only OS vendor who a) builds on previous codebases and b) has some long-running bugs (or "bugs") ?
Actually I cited a couple. Since you did as well, I didn't really see a reason to repeat them. Apparently when you're starting from a position of "Apple can do no wrong", as you obviously are, it's hard to understand alternative viewpoints.
You talked about performance. I maintain that the performance of the iMac (maximally configured, it's got 8 GB RAM, 3 GHz Core 2 Duo, ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB) is close enough to the minimally configured mac pro [...] (I am NOT saying the iMac is the performance equivalent to a minimal mac pro, only that you need not catalog a machine between them).
Again, you're begging the question. There's no reason for an Apple Core i7-based tower of basically equivalent config to the bottom-end Mac Pro to cost much more than $1200, or at an absolute stretch, $1500. After all, Dell manage to sell one for under a grand ($800 in its base configuration). The iMac configuration you are talking about costs over $3,000.
[...] that it is unnecessary to try and shoehorn another machine between the two [...]
There is no "shoehorning" whatsoever involved in creating a Mac tower. The lack of one - in the face of pretty much every other computer manufacturer making it their prime seller, to say nothing of ongoing and vocal customer demand - has been a yawning chasm in Apple's hardware catalogue for years. "Shoehorn" ? Jesus, you could fit two or three distinct models in between the Mac Mini the Mac Pro, without even considering the iMac.
You talked about consolidating multiple computers without any sort of hint as to how this tower aids in that.
I thought it would have been blindingly obvious, but apparently not.
Scenario: you have a Windows PC for gaming, and a Mac (let's say a Mac Mini) for "everything else". You do this a) because 99% of games are Windows-only, b) because you can, relatively cheaply, make your PC a gaming powerhouse just by dropping in a decent video card, and c) because you prefer to use things like iWork, GarageBand and iPhoto.
Since Macs these days are just x86 boxes, they can run Windows. Great, scratch one reason you need a PC. Unfortunately you can't really get good Mac gaming hardware without buying a $2,500+ Mac Pro - the Mini is too weak and the iMac is either too weak or very expensive (and comes with a monitor welded to it).
Solution: A $1200-ish Mac tower you can put a decent video card into (+$100), and dual boot to Windows to play games. Viola, you have consolidated your two machines into one.
You talked about separable displays, [...]
I gave a real-life example of how in the past the gaping hole in Apple's lineup has lost them sales. Incidentally, the current Mac Mini has been out for all of a couple of months - it's hardly a relevant counter-example given the obvious scale of the deployment I was talking about. In fact, it serves as an excellent example of how it's incredibly difficult for a business to build any sort of strategy around Apple's hardware because of their unpredictable, secretive and arbitrary treatment of it. Until it was released, no-one had any sort of assurance that it would be dual-screen capable, and until the day the next one is released, no-one will have any assurance that it will remain dual-screen capable.
[...] and when I pointed out that the current minis met your requirements you then gave us a howler about a $500 price premium over equivalent PCs (You do realize the minis start at $599, right?
A Dell Optiplex 360 with a 2.5Ghz dual-core CPU, 4GB RAM, 80GB hard disk, dual-DVI Radeon 3450 and a 3 year warranty, costs $621.
A similarly configured Mac Mini costs $1146 ($599 base + $150 for a faster CPU, $150 for 4GB RAM, $98 for keyboard+mouse and $149 for Applecare).
Further, that Dell price is retail. In reality, we can count on at least 10% off, even with relatively small volume purchases. From Apple
Um, iMacs do have BTO options for alternate video "cards."
Not many, none of which are particularly cutting edge, and all of which require you to upscale to a higher-end 24" iMac before they even appear. The point is that the implementation significantly restricts the options.
I fail to see how PCIe slots help that.
Cue the Mac Pro.
You were begging the question (and continue to do so). The difference between an iMac and a tower is not just the slots (indeed, they're one of the less significant issues, IME).
Then the new mac minis satisfy your requirements - they can drive dual displays now since they have a mini DVI and mini display port.
Too late. That horse has long since bolted. Additionally, the Mini would still attract a roughly $500 premium over a suitable PC (ie: about double the cost), to say nothing of the very real risk of Apple deciding to rip out the second Mini-DVI port with the next Mini revision and put us back in the position of needing a $2,500 Mac Pro on everyone's desktop.
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There are half a dozen versions of Windows in common use, more if you count the different editions. Microsoft alone has several major and radically different GUI APIs, and there are several common third party ones in addition to that. The notion that Windows is more "consistent" or simpler to target is a joke.
Then why is Windows so ridiculously better at legacy support ?
You've picked a definition of "design" which leads inescapably to the conclusion the Mac OS X is designed to run on any Intel platform.
I have not. Primarily because that's not the conclusion I have even suggested, let alone reached.
You can say that Mac OS X is designed for generic Intel system $X by dint of it successfully compiling to x86 assembly, but I could argue it isn't by dint of its lack of available kexts for the motherboard accoutrements system $X, or the OS's contingent operation on the "Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X.kext" device.
Specific hardware drivers are not - or certainly shouldn't be - part of an OS's design (for a general purpose OS like IS X). Interfaces for the drivers to use ? Sure. The drivers themselves ? Typically not.
You appear to be doing a very good job of destroying a straw man. The _only_ point I have made, is that OS X is not _designed_ to work solely with Apple's hardware lineup, if for no other reason that that would be an incredibly boneheaded thing to do, and Apple's developers clearly aren't that dumb.
An OS designed specifically for a particular set of hardware, is an OS that is substantially more difficult to make work on any other hardware, including future hardware from the same source.
OS X is designed to be portable. It's been ported *at least once* to completely different architecture in its current guise and several times previously when it was called NeXT/OPENSTEP.
Plasma's burn-in problem makes it a complete non-starter for anything other than movies, as you say.
What remotely modern plasma still has a problem with burn-in ?
Why? They're the exact same, except a computer flat panel has simpler electronics (doesn't need a tuner).
The 42" "computer screen" would be expected to have a higher resolution than 1080p.
And what is the point of having a network channel between these devices and a *display* ? As the GP asked, why do I need ethernet on my display device?
Not a lot. Between those devices and your amplifier with a built-in switch or wireless, on the other hand...
MS isn't going to want to let every OEM from London to Rome implement some hare-brained implementation that may or may not work.
Given that's basically their business model (and has been for a couple of decades now), I'd say they will.
Microsoft won't let OEMs install their own software ? Have you *looked* at the crap that comes with a consumer-level PC these days ?
I think you're working too hard to build your argument around the foregone conclusion...
My argument - that OS X is designed to be portable and not tied to a specific hardware range - hasn't changed since the first post. The one you replied to insisting there is no meaningful difference between "designed for" and "only supported on".
The Linux kernel is written in C, which is a language designed to be obfuscated in a binary format.
Begging the question.
As evidenced by the Linux kernel's ability to be built into a binary, it was clearly designed to be distributed in a locked-down format.
Begging the question, non-sequitur.
The license on the tarball I downloaded has little bearing to the actual build and distribution system.
Irrelevant.
In this day and age you'd need to be an awesomely incompetent developer to give away all your changes to the kernel for free.
Irrelevant.
Not exactly the same thing,
Not even *close* to the same thing.
[...] but I think you have to respect the vendor as being the person who says what something is designed to do, [...]
Does Apple say OS X is designed only to be run on their hardware ? If so, in what context ?
[...] and their rights to control their works within the bounds of the law. Don't like it? Change da law.
I have no idea how you get to here from the previous discussion.
Microsoft repeatedly pulls stunts like resetting the default browser back to IE, in addition to not allowing it to be uninstalled.
Yes. That's because it would break the thousands of applications that rely on those shared components to function. Breaking existing applications is something Microsoft is extremely reluctant - often to a fault - to do.
If you were literate, you might understand that no one is requiring Microsoft to support other browsers. Microsoft is being required to make options available.
Why is this Microsoft's problem and not that of the OEMs selling the computers ?
Strictly speaking, Mac OS X is "designed" (in the intel case) to run on an Intel CPU with EFI and a specified closed set of hardware...
No, it's not. As evidenced by it running on different hardware. OS X is - clearly, as it's been ported to a completely different architecture *at least* once - designed to be a portable OS. That means it is *not* designed for even a specific CPU, let alone a specific (or set of specific) computer(s).
Windows isn't "designed" to support a set of hardware as much as it's "designed" to support OEMs writing their own drivers, which has the effect of Microsoft claiming that it "supports" a wide range of hardware, when really all they do is give vendors a platform and the "support" is finally the vendor's problem.
Windows is designed the same way OS X is. To be portable and not tied to specific hardware implementations.
Or maybe I'm conflating support with design, because I consider how you resolve problems to be part of the design of the OS.
You are, and it's not.
In any case, I think it's safe to say that design relates intention, and Mac OS X is only intended to run on Apple-branded hardware.
The label on the front has little bearing on the hardware inside (the part that actually does the whole "run the OS" thing).
I thought your point was that Apple didn't have the technical wherewithal to accomplish the feat of destroying their hardware business, and I'm just saying it's within their power if they wanted to but it really wouldn't benefit them.
No, my point was that (in this day and age) you'd need to be an awesomely incompetent developer to tie your OS *design* to a specific range of hardware platforms.
Honestly, Dell has probelms shipping hardware that runs well for less than $800.
From Dell, for $800 (and that's list price) you get a machine with the same CPU power and RAM as a $2500 Mac Pro. For less than the $1200 price tag of a baseline iMac, you get a Dell Studio XPS more than twice as fast, with half again as much RAM and hard disk space (and again, that's standard retail price - shop smart and you'll do dramatically better).
If Apple officially supports running Leopard on hardware made in 2001, I would think they couldn't lose any customers by having them unofficially install it on hardware many times more powerful than that.
They lose because instead of buying a $2500 Mac Pro, people will buy a $900 Dell Studio XPS that has 95% of the functionality, or a $600 Dell Optiplex that does everything they want for around half the price of an equivalent Mac Mini.
The only people who want a midrange desktop, as opposed to something like a Mac Mini or an iMac, are those that want to be able to upgrade their hardware, but don't want to pay the premium for something like the Mac Pro.
Or most businesses.
Or anyone who doesn't want a screen welded to their machine.
Or anyone who wants to connect 2+ of their own screens.
You say desktop sales make up only 40% ([citation needed]). Has it occurred to you that 99% of that 40% is the kind of towers that Apple refuses to sell ?
Distinction without a difference.
Fundamental difference. An OS specifically designed for even a particular version of an AMD or Intel CPU, would quite feasibly not run on any of the others (eg: take advantage of features specific to Core 2). Similarly in terms of specific chipset, NIC, or other hardware implementations.
Supporting many hardware configurations doesn't require "mad skillz," it just requires mongolian hordes of devlopers, and not minding that everyone in the support queue hates you. It would probably also mean the end of the Genius Bar as we know it, and the Genius Bar is the only compelling reason to buy a Mac for a lot of people.
You've missed my point. By a mile.
OS X is designed to run only on Apple hardware.
It is not. It is _supported_ only on Apple hardware.
It's amazing the number of Apple zealots who will go on and on about what mad skillz Apple's OS developers have, then turn around and insist they'd be so incompetent as to tie their basic design into particular hardware designs.
In any event, from a component perspective an Apple Mac is a generic PC. Same CPU, same hard disk, same RAM, same chipset, same video card.
As far as the other major OS vendors go, Sun offers Solaris for free, Redhat, Novell and Canonical, likewise with their Linux distros.
Fundamentally different business models.
As a matter of interest though, what's Red Hat's profit margins on their support licenses ?
Symbian OS available for as little as $2.50 per device, though admittedly it is less complex.
What's the profit margin ?
IBM's operating systems (ie, z/OS) cost money, but it's hard to work out their margins, given the state of the mainframe market.
Also a fundamentally different business model.
With the limited number of samples available (due in no small part to Microsoft's own predatory practices), you'd have to say the amortized cost of an operating system should be very low or zero, if support is paid for..
For most customers, the price of Windows *is* "very low or zero". It comes with their computer.
Doesn't have to be an OS. Pick any large and complex piece of commercial software and it should be at least in the same ballpark. SAP, Photoshop, Maya, Oracle Applications Server, Oracle DB, VMWare, etc, etc.
Modal dialog boxes rarely have a use. System modal dialog boxes are evil.
System modal dialogs in Windows are exceptionally rare, and always justified so far as I have seen.
Apple popularized them and they have recanted their heresy. Modal dialog boxes are active evil.
OS X still uses them. The two flagship OSS GUIs - GNOME and KDE - both have modal dialogs. Two of the most high-profile OSS applications - Firefox and OpenOffice - also use modal dialogs.
Microsoft once again, is behind the times.
The implication that Microsoft are the only developers still using modal dialogs and therefore, somehow, "behind the times" is so easily shown to be wrong it doesn't even pass the laugh test.
Say I get prompted to enter a password. I have the password in a text file under the application which has the dialog open. But I can't get to it. Modality for an application is fine but you should still be able to move it around the screen.
GUI-wide modal dialogs in Windows are extremely rare and, in my experience, always justified.
How about making window management not block when a modal dialog is open?
The whole *point* of a modal dialog is to block the application underneath it. Blame the application developers, for poor use of modal dialogs.
Nobody gets those sort of margins in a competitive market.
Then, since you've obviously done the research, then, perhaps you can give the numbers for some other pieces of similarly complex commercial software to compare and contrast. OS X, Photoshop, SAP, Oracle DB, for example.
To produce ALL the power used in the US now, including all electricity, heating and transportation energy use, requires a patch of solar panels in the southwest desert about 170,000 km^2 assuming 8% efficiency (which is low). That's about the same as the paved area of the USA (160,000 km^2), and about 1/3rd of the desert area.
Does this number account for the fact that Solar, like a government worker, is only useful for about four hours a day ?
That's besides the point. The point is that they're using old crap, putting it in a new package and pushing it to everyone as something completely new.
Are you seriously trying to suggest Microsoft is the only OS vendor who a) builds on previous codebases and b) has some long-running bugs (or "bugs") ?
You have yet to actually cite one.
Actually I cited a couple. Since you did as well, I didn't really see a reason to repeat them. Apparently when you're starting from a position of "Apple can do no wrong", as you obviously are, it's hard to understand alternative viewpoints.
You talked about performance. I maintain that the performance of the iMac (maximally configured, it's got 8 GB RAM, 3 GHz Core 2 Duo, ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB) is close enough to the minimally configured mac pro [...] (I am NOT saying the iMac is the performance equivalent to a minimal mac pro, only that you need not catalog a machine between them).
Again, you're begging the question. There's no reason for an Apple Core i7-based tower of basically equivalent config to the bottom-end Mac Pro to cost much more than $1200, or at an absolute stretch, $1500. After all, Dell manage to sell one for under a grand ($800 in its base configuration). The iMac configuration you are talking about costs over $3,000.
[...] that it is unnecessary to try and shoehorn another machine between the two [...]
There is no "shoehorning" whatsoever involved in creating a Mac tower. The lack of one - in the face of pretty much every other computer manufacturer making it their prime seller, to say nothing of ongoing and vocal customer demand - has been a yawning chasm in Apple's hardware catalogue for years. "Shoehorn" ? Jesus, you could fit two or three distinct models in between the Mac Mini the Mac Pro, without even considering the iMac.
You talked about consolidating multiple computers without any sort of hint as to how this tower aids in that.
I thought it would have been blindingly obvious, but apparently not.
Scenario: you have a Windows PC for gaming, and a Mac (let's say a Mac Mini) for "everything else". You do this a) because 99% of games are Windows-only, b) because you can, relatively cheaply, make your PC a gaming powerhouse just by dropping in a decent video card, and c) because you prefer to use things like iWork, GarageBand and iPhoto.
Since Macs these days are just x86 boxes, they can run Windows. Great, scratch one reason you need a PC. Unfortunately you can't really get good Mac gaming hardware without buying a $2,500+ Mac Pro - the Mini is too weak and the iMac is either too weak or very expensive (and comes with a monitor welded to it).
Solution: A $1200-ish Mac tower you can put a decent video card into (+$100), and dual boot to Windows to play games. Viola, you have consolidated your two machines into one.
You talked about separable displays, [...]
I gave a real-life example of how in the past the gaping hole in Apple's lineup has lost them sales. Incidentally, the current Mac Mini has been out for all of a couple of months - it's hardly a relevant counter-example given the obvious scale of the deployment I was talking about. In fact, it serves as an excellent example of how it's incredibly difficult for a business to build any sort of strategy around Apple's hardware because of their unpredictable, secretive and arbitrary treatment of it. Until it was released, no-one had any sort of assurance that it would be dual-screen capable, and until the day the next one is released, no-one will have any assurance that it will remain dual-screen capable.
[...] and when I pointed out that the current minis met your requirements you then gave us a howler about a $500 price premium over equivalent PCs (You do realize the minis start at $599, right?
A Dell Optiplex 360 with a 2.5Ghz dual-core CPU, 4GB RAM, 80GB hard disk, dual-DVI Radeon 3450 and a 3 year warranty, costs $621.
A similarly configured Mac Mini costs $1146 ($599 base + $150 for a faster CPU, $150 for 4GB RAM, $98 for keyboard+mouse and $149 for Applecare).
Further, that Dell price is retail. In reality, we can count on at least 10% off, even with relatively small volume purchases. From Apple
Um, iMacs do have BTO options for alternate video "cards."
Not many, none of which are particularly cutting edge, and all of which require you to upscale to a higher-end 24" iMac before they even appear. The point is that the implementation significantly restricts the options.
I fail to see how PCIe slots help that.
Cue the Mac Pro.
You were begging the question (and continue to do so). The difference between an iMac and a tower is not just the slots (indeed, they're one of the less significant issues, IME).
Then the new mac minis satisfy your requirements - they can drive dual displays now since they have a mini DVI and mini display port.
Too late. That horse has long since bolted. Additionally, the Mini would still attract a roughly $500 premium over a suitable PC (ie: about double the cost), to say nothing of the very real risk of Apple deciding to rip out the second Mini-DVI port with the next Mini revision and put us back in the position of needing a $2,500 Mac Pro on everyone's desktop.