This site sold a Mac.

So I had the day off Friday and was running some errands when I strolled into the local London Drugs. For a chuckle I decided to open up this site on one of the display Vista machines with an internet connection and leave it there for someone to see. I brought up the post about the Microsoft guy saying he’d buy a Mac if he wasn’t working for Microsoft and then left it. I continued browsing around and within a few moments I noticed some guy walking up to the computer with a printed specs sheet in hand and obviously intent on buying that machine. The machine in question was a no-name brand PC with a horridly cheap case but some semi-decent parts inside. The price tag was $1500 CAD.

I watched from behind a display about 10′ away while pretending to look at PDAs. The guy either didn’t notice the screen or didn’t care. He was busy looking at the sheet in hand and peering at the connections at the back of the computer. He was obviously serious about buying this computer right now. Then he stopped. He’d seen the open browser window and it’s contents. I smiled as he read for a second and then leaned in closer to read the smaller text. He turned from the screen laughing out loud and called the salesman over by name. The salesman came over and the customer pointed at the screen. “Have you seen this?” he laughed. The salesman glanced at the screen and seemed unsurprised. He motioned for the customer to follow him and walked over to the Apple area of the dept. I grinned widely and left the store.

After grabbing a coffee and doing some banking I was starting to wish I had stuck around to see what happened. I had parked in the store’s parking lot so I figured I’d have a look again to see if the guy was still there. Maybe I’d ask the salesman what had happened with that customer if he had already left. I went back and the customer was at the register. I nonchalantly strolled past and looked to see what was being rung up. An internal CD/DVD drive, an ultra cheap USB or Firewire PCI card, and at the bottom of the pile was a box. I strained for a closer look…

Mac Mini.

HA!

The customer was waiting for his receipt to be printed up and strolled away from the counter. I casually said “Buying a Mac Mini huh?”

“Yeah, I hear nothing but good things about Macs. I figure this will be a good way to try it out.”

“Yeah I want to get a new iMac when they come out. I want one of those minis for the living room with a wireless keyboard and mouse”

“Oh that’s a good idea!”

“Enjoy your Mac.” I said, and left.

It may be kinda pathetic but that 15 minutes made my day. The guy was about to spend hundreds of dollars more on a Vista PC and just seeing 1 article on this site was enough to open his mind up to other solutions. I guess Business week magazine was right. Blogs can change your business.

I could get used to this.