Will the Mac once again change the PC?

Like it or not, America—and much of the world—is undergoing a sort of revolution of style and form. We're not going to get too philosophical on it, and yes, substance never goes out of style, but long gone are the days of beige boxes and plain peripherals. And now that the Mac Mini's hit home, Cnet's John Spooner wants to know if it will usher forth the mini-PC revolution. Engadget's answer? Maybe, but it's going to be up to the big players, and how badly they want it. Mini-ITX and the
small form-factor PC (SFF PC) are important in making the Mac mini-like PC a reality, but the smallest machines are often severely underpowered compared to their desktop brethren; when they do come closer to matching specs, they tend to totally overshoot a reasonable pricepoint. And for the PC user, the price-differential is so small between laptops and desktops anymore, it doesn't make a lot of sense for Joe34324@aol.com to lay down $800 on an SFF machine over a slightly more (or
less) expensive laptop. So while big companies like HP
are "excited" about the possibility of putting small PCs in America's homes, we think they're going to have to do some serious revamping (and possibily a bit of innovating, too) before they're going to be able to cannibalize their own laptop business and convince the end-user that small and chic is de rigueur.