Looks to be more like dell's answer to asus's nettop box. I dont think dell competes with apple. In fact, i dont think anyone really competes with apple anymore. Apple sells their name and status and they maintain that by keeping their products semi-exclusive due to price. Nobody else is trying to grab the most expensive computer products title from them, instead they're trying to go the other end to outsell the people they're actually competing against.
I would call it an attempt at combining htpc (though the fan makes that unlikely to win any awards) and itx form factor fileserver. I wouldn't call it a media server because it's obviously trying to be the displayer of content, not simply pushing it to a machine that does. It's for people who currently use their ps3 or xbox360 as a media center box and if the price is right, can't afford a real htpc setup. I definitely couldn't see dropping more than 200 bucks on it, especially if it's atom based.