Psystar: White Dwarf or Black Hole?

Psystar announced it's $399 Mac clone "OpenMac" Monday, April 14.  Within minutes their website was taken down, reasons unknown.

Today the website came back up, and the name of the product has changed to "Open Computer".  It's still the same package, though: you get a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Processor, 2GB of DDR2 667 memory, Integrated Intel GMA 950 Graphics, a 20x DVD+/-R SATA drive that is Lightscribe-capable, and four rear USB Ports.  More importantly, you get a licensed copy of Mac OSX 10.5 "Leopard".  Psystar claims the $400 machine is roughly equivalent to a $2000 Mac.

At issue is Psystar's ability to resell Leopard for use on its clones.  The Leopard EULA specifies that Leopard is for use only on Apple-branded machines.  Psystar asserts that the EULA is anticompetitive.

Surely Psystar is aware that they face an immediate legal battle from Apple.  So the question is: are they prepared to fight it, and do they have a plan to win?  It seems like they might have a case, but Apple will probably be able to get a temporary cease-and-desist order, which may keep the thing locked up for years.  And odds are Apple will eventually win out.

Though the odds are small, however, this could spell the end of Apple's monopoly on Mac hardware, which would change the landscape irrevocably.

Comments

[David Gaw]

While I claim no special expertise, Psystar's position looks pretty flimsy to me, and I suspect Apple has more than enough in the bank to litigate Psystar into oblivion even if it weren't. Personally, I'd just buy a Mac and be done with it.