I really get amused hearing people talking about how "pricey" a computer is today, whether it be a maxed out mini or a MBP or a MP or whatnot. I remember the first IBM PC that I ever saw at a company where I worked at the time. They had just ordered it new, and including the base PC (not even an AT - no HDD!) and 640k RAM (that's right - 640K!), two 5 1/4" floppy drives, a keyboard, and a monochrome monitor (I think it was 14" or something like that) the price tag was over $5000. And that was in 1981 dollars, which would be worth much more today (probably between $10K-$20K). Now look at any computer on the market today and tell me it is pricey.
That brings back old memories! The first IBM PC I used was pure rev 1. It had 128K RAM and a single 128K single density floppy - no clock or anything like that. You had to put the OS disk in to boot it. Then you removed it and put in your application disk. Whenever you wanted to 'save' your work, you removed the floppy again, put in the data disk, saved it, then put the application disk back in. If you had any crash, you had to begin again, starting from the beginning. I thought I had died and gone to heaven after we upgraded to an AST card (yep, that is where they started); it had a battery, clock, and an additional 256K of ram. We also installed two of the new 360K double-sided floppy drives, and the new DOS 2.0 which could read them. Later we added the IOmega Bernoulli box. It had (2) 10MB removable cartridges. All told, this system cost nearly $7000!
The cost for technology today is an incredible value. The Mini definitely has an undiscovered place in the business world. I do not know how many of you are familiar with thin-client computing. Essentially, a thin-client is an X-terminal, dumb-terminal, or disk-less workstation. They have become very popular. They basically run a remote session through Unix, 3720 or Citrix.
My company run Citrix. We have experimented with Wyse and HP thin-clients. These machines boot to Win XP Embedded shell. You can install some drivers and a couple small apps. They are strictly VGA, 4 USB 2.0, 10/100 Ethernet. The Wyse has a cheap keyboard and roller mouse. It does not have firewire or wireless. They cost about $500-$600.
For roughly the same price, I can score an entry-level Mini. The Mini gives me so many more options and I am actually deploying a computer. What is more, my users love them. I just wish they came standard with 1 MB.
If you are an IT Manager reading this, and are using thin-clients, you really owe it to yourself to look at this solution. In fact, if you are in a Citrix environment and using standard desktops, this is still a great way to go. Citrix is running your legacy apps, Office Suite and Windows proprietary software. Citrix client actually runs better on the Macs than the Windows machines.
