IT Professionals

Psystar Is Going To Fight

Posted by on Aug 1, 2008 | 4 Comments

The coming battle between the latest company to offer Mac clones (Psystar) and Apple is set to be a stellar one. Psystar really took things to the next level through hiring fairly competent legal assistance in dealing with Apple’s lawsuit against them. Will they win? I tend to doubt it as the Apple licensing is fairly clear. Seeing Apple losing this battle to me means that software licensing is not very well protected then if Psystar is allowed to win.

Apple’s core business is about selling specially selected hardware that “just works” with software designed to be user friendly. What so many people seem to forget is that Apple is in fact, a hardware company. And  just as in the past, Mac clones are a threat to their business model.

So what is your take on this? Should Apple be held at fault here or are they clearly in the right to protect their license from hardware clones using their operating system? Hit the comments, share your perspective.

  • blitz

    I don’t think Apple is at fault at all. They have implemented the phrase “It’s as easy to use as an iPod” as one of their core business models to promote to the public to gain awareness on the Mac brand, and judging by their quickly increasing sales, it’s working. They shouldn’t allow some third-party company to rip off their products. Notice how a company hasn’t tried to do this to Apple in the past because they had lousy sales. Now Apple is making a 180º turn around in the computer world and this is just one flaw that comes with such attention.

    I don’t think the Apple business model should be compared to the Windows business model, as some people like to speculate on, because one company (Windows) is all about licensing software to numerous hardware companies while Apple is all about making software and hardware in unison.

  • Sid Gilbert

    Apple seems to be in the right on this case, however I still find it hard to sympathize with them after the Apple Records debacle where they basically violated a decades old agreement they had with Apple records to stay out of the music business in order to keep using the name ‘Apple’. Even though iTunes clearly violated this agreement they eventually were able to throw enough lawyers at Apple Records to beat them. It wasn’t moral, ethical, or cool in any way, and so I always hope that Apple loses any litigation they undergo. I think it is karma come to pay a call.

  • Nat

    Of course Apple is right to fight this. Their license states how they allow OS X to be used, and this is clearly not a licensed use.

    It’s one thing for someone to hack together their own Hackintosh and run OS X, but it’s another thing entirely for a company to set itself up on the foundation of breaking a license agreement.

    The article you linked to above states:
    “Psystar claims its Mac clones cost about one-quarter to half of what Apple branded systems sell for. In defense of its clones, the company charges that Apple marks up the cost of the hardware on which its operating systems ride by as much as 80%. ”

    So “you charge too much” is now a valid argument for breaking the law? I guess the next time someone gets tagged by the music or movie industries for illegal downloads, they should hire this same law firm and use that as their defense. We’ll see how far it gets them.

  • GiM

    Well, the guns are made for defense, so let jail gun manufacturers since there is crime… and finnaly we will have PEACE since war is not possible without guns! Do you see this happens in America?

    C’mon, Apple says to use their operating system only on their computers, but if I buy some licenses, do Apple suit me it I use them to make a brick to jump easily through the window? (Not Windows ;-)

    Psystar is not the only manufacturer which make computers compatible with computers make by Apple… it is just not hiding this. More, it is clever to do it a legal Business!

    The key is a to use same hardware components ( !!! ), anybody can do it. And being made by same manufacturers, the only difference is the assembler, and the price.

    If the hardware was manufactured by Apple (I refer to components, like motherboard itself, hdd… – more or less with the first McIntosh computers) maybe they have a small chance, but since they adopted hardware mane only by others…

    Ans what about other manufacturers? If someone made an “ssd”, this means nobody can make other “ssd” using other matherials, having other performance and certainly other price? Nope!

    And the price is all – especialy for hardware, Apple sell same components few times then the rest of the market, and this is just business, the hardware is make by others, with very small prices compared with what Apple sell them… Try to buy 4GB ram from Apple and also from internet, using exactly same item!

    My opinion, Apple lose!