The Mac Mini in India

The Mac Mini was launched in a typically subdued way in India with a competitive price tag of Rs 25,000 or thereabouts. Having worked on Macs and only Macs for the past four years and more, and having had experience with Windows before that, I can confidently assert that Mac OS X is the best OS I have ever worked on and Apple definitely makes the best computer hardware there is. Just compare the iMac with any PC around and you can see the difference.

Apple has never had a major presence in India which is almost completely Windows oriented (though Linux has been making impressive inroads in the past few years). I attribute this to two important reasons :
- the cost of the Mac which is roughly equivalent to the cost of 4 PCs
- the complete absence of any kind of marketing

Hopefully, the Mac Mini would address the first of these issues. Lets see - 25k for the Mini, Rs 5000 for a decent monitor and add in another 2000 for a keyboard-mouse. So for less than Rs 35000, you are working on the best OS in the world, with the best suite of lifestyle apps ever created, a CD burner and a DVD player - THATS some deal ! I am sure that on my own I would be able to tempt at least 20-30 people to buy this.

The second issue now. There has been a near-mute advertisement of the Mini, no banners, nothing proclaiming the arrival of the budget Mac. This may not be as necessary in the USA where Apple already has a niche presence. But in a new market like India, I am sure Apple would be able to lot of interest if it marketed better. And this is the right time for Apple to do so because the market in India is changing. We now have a larger upper-middle-class who are willing to spend more for quality. The Indian buyer now is much more keen on his lifestyle - he is into the digital age. And what better support do you need for that than iLife ?

But - is Apple ready for it ? The small Apple Center in Bangalore has a few items on display which are available only on order. Customers have to wait for more than a week to get an iPod Shuffle - they have to be imported from Singapore. The chances then are that Apple is still not ready enough to go too public with its products. Which is sad because the potential is huge and the Indian market is extremely vibrant. So Apple - take the plunge ! Lets have a production plant in India - the labour is cheap, and there is surplus of capable professionals passing out every year - and launch the Apple saga in India in a big way.

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