In the January presentation when the iShuffle and Mini-Mac were announced; the CEO of Sony was present. Why? Sure, sony makes some of the LCD screens for Apple, but his hardly warrents the presence of the CEO of one of the world's largest corporations. Fluke? I think not.
A really great article, elaborating much more on this thought may be found here .
I must again emphasize, this is a truly outstanding article. Some really awesome points are made, and I think this man is 100% correct.
IIRC, the CEO of Sony was there to talk about how their new camera works with iLife. I agree with the article that it was odd to have Sony's CEO there just to talk about a camera linking up with software, but if there really was something bigger coming down the pipe, why not save the CEO appearance until they were ready to announce it?
When we get a Mac mini II with nvidia's DVD decoder and an M-Audio sound card, then I'll start thinking of the Mac mini as a true HTPC. Right now, it's just a foot in the door.