Mac clone maker wins legal round against Apple

Remember PsyStar?

http://www.computerworld.com/action...wArticleBasic&articleId=9127579&source=NLT_AM

I just can't figure out why Apple has such a burr up its butt about this. They could make a mint selling the O/S to people who don't want Apple hardware.

They wouldn't have to support it on non-Apple equipment. Or, better still (from a monetary standpoint), Apple could charge for supporting non-Apple equipment.

Apples are just PC clones with a BIOS tweak now anyway.

mbigna said:

I just can't figure out why Apple has such a burr up its butt about this.

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It's because of Steve Jobs. I believe he doesn't want non-Apple machines running his OS because of two main reasons:

1) He doesn't want clone makers to undercut Apple's own hardware (such a scenario happened a dozen years ago with officially licensed Mac clones that were of a higher build quality then Apple's own machines, and sold for cheaper).

2) He doesn't want "sub-par" clone hardware tainting the Mac user experience. Apple feels that the "Mac experience" is the combination of the computer hardware and the software, it's the whole package that works so well together.

Well, we'll start to seee how it plays out in 9 months when the trial starts.

Apple doesn't need to make money on the computers anymore, they make a decent amount from Ipods + accessories. Then they use that to maintain their computers (i'd say subsidize but the computers cost enough to pay for themselves).

I'm not for Cystar, but i do think apple should offer the OS for sale on non-apple hardware.

Like Benbaked said, apple right now pretty much always has the solutions to whatever problems their users run into, because of strict hardware control. They don't have to load up and make compatible 6 milion drivers, which makes the task of troubleshootig much easier.

Apple sells a complete product, you can't say they are an operating system company, and you can't say they are an OEM, they are both rolled into one.

I think apple should remain apple, but allow sales of licenses to third party OEMs, on the sole condition that they (the OEM) provide the support for any issues. Apple doesn't want all that extra trouble, and that is most likely why they don't want to sell licenses. I don't think they want to turn into another microsoft, I can't imagine the amount of calls M$ must get from uninformed people trying to get Vista Ultimate loaded onto their 486 Dx4 that cost them 3 grand and has upgraded memory and a soundblaster 16

Nick

If Apple sold their OS they would become like Windows and thus loose ALL the marketing they have done over the years on stability and being so secure.

and they wont sell the hardware, when you buy Apple, your not paying for the OS, thas almost free, your paying for overpriced hardware and a name.

This way they control everything %100, what was funny was last year, they had some report on apple support successrate and apparently apple CS was only able to resolve like %90 of problems with the OS......

Apple doesn't have to worry so much about hardware. The Apple snobs sheep loyalists will still buy the hardware, but there is a significant market out there of people who already have a PC who would like to give O/S X a shot (and don't feel like buying another computer just for that 'privilege').

They could easily create a list of acceptable hardware in order to limit incompatibilities as well a include a liability release in the EULA. Apple could also set the price at a point where only serious/experienced users would be interested.

Haha, 1995-1998 proved otherwise mbigna. There are a lot of people who fondly remember their Power Computing and Umax clones. Those were NICE machines for their time. Brand loyalty is to the OS and not the box housing the hardware.

I really don't think the Mac could survive as well in the wild. I really don't think it needs to either. The product makes money and keeps people employed. Any other benchmark with spin attached is purely fanboy-ism of one form or another. Increasing market share is good but not as important as people like to think. Mahindra tractors wants to increase it's market share over John Deere, but I really doubt there are as many heated arguments about Mahindra v.s. JD as there are with Mac v.s. PC. Being a tractor fanboi just seems weird to me anyways haha.

While I'd love to be able to throw OS X on any PC I could assemble, I really don't think Apple could succeed as an platform that way. For all the people who would "love to switch" I'd venture to say that maybe 5-10% actually would.

i still have a working power computing clone outa the clone wars. It was ordered with BeOS however that never actually made it to a reality so os 7.6 i think it was wound up being the main os of the machine.

still kicks around with os8, i put a voodoo2 in it and ran unreal tournament (99) when it came out, ohh the good old days

this case is really testing the legality of EULAs. How can you prove who clicked "i accept"?

Moto7451 said:

Haha, 1995-1998 proved otherwise mbigna. There are a lot of people who fondly remember their Power Computing and Umax clones. Those were NICE machines for their time. Brand loyalty is to the OS and not the box housing the hardware.

I really don't think the Mac could survive as well in the wild. I really don't think it needs to either. The product makes money and keeps people employed. Any other benchmark with spin attached is purely fanboy-ism of one form or another. Increasing market share is good but not as important as people like to think. Mahindra tractors wants to increase it's market share over John Deere, but I really doubt there are as many heated arguments about Mahindra v.s. JD as there are with Mac v.s. PC. Being a tractor fanboi just seems weird to me anyways haha.

While I'd love to be able to throw OS X on any PC I could assemble, I really don't think Apple could succeed as an platform that way. For all the people who would "love to switch" I'd venture to say that maybe 5-10% actually would.

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Actually, the existence of Power Computing and Umax proves nothing as both were selling software tied to their own--albeit cheaper--hardware. Also, during this time, the Mac software ran exclusively on IBM's power PC chips--not Intel x86. Their existence did prove that Apple hardware was grossly overpriced which contributed to Apple's declining revenues and eventually the ouster of Gil Amelio (and pave the way for the return of Steve Jobs). It also proved that there was a group of non-Apple users who wanted give the Mac O/S a shot--expanding the Mac market. Remember, that Apple shut these companies down before they got a chance to make much of an impact. Steve Jobs basically admitted that Apple wanted to maintain their margins rather than to market to the masses.

As a computing company, Apple doesn't really market their hardware or software--they sell the 'Apple experience'. The truth is that the 'experience' resides mainly in the software/operating system--especially now since Apple has since moved to standard Intel processors and associated hardware. Furthermore (as if I needed any more 'proof'), Apple no longer airs commercials making ridiculous performance claims like they did in their Power PC chip days. They tried to get away with it by comparing disparate chips and disparate benchmarks, and they were eventually forced to drop those ads. When Apple moved to Intel (much to the chagrin of the Apple Faithful), any pretense of performance advantages went out the window (pardon the pun). Apple now airs their mildly entertaining PC/Mac commercials--but the onus is not comparing a Mac to a PC, but rather the Mac OS vs. Vista.

We are in the era where hardware has become a commodity. Apple still makes it's living selling the sizzle, not the steak. Apple customers who buy Mac products know they are paying for the O/S because they wouldn't dare pay that much for a similarly speced Windows machine.

It's possible that Apple has a fear of their 'experience' becoming marginalized if they forgo tying their O/S to their own hardware--even if the hardware is the same for all other O/S's. Becoming a software company would force them to compete directly with Microsoft and Linux/*nix. But I don't know how the Mac can survive [Apple would still survive on its iPod sales alone] at all if it continues to be tied to overpriced hardware.

Apples approach is similar to that of a console gaming machine. "you have to have our hardware to run our software". Their previous attempts with PowerPC chips was to truly make it a "console war", but they realized people weren't buying Macs for the hardware, they were buying them for the OS. So they changed to Intel to give people the performance they wanted with the OS they wanted. If a clone is allowed, it ruins their whole marketing/business strategy. If they allow clones, they might as well not even bother creating Macs. But, then they'll run in to the same issues as Microsoft where they'll need to support more hardware, and then faulty hardware will make people think that there is a problem with the OS.

As much as I'd love for Apple to allow Mac OS X to be run on commodity hardware, I think their current strategy is the best for them as a company.

splat said:

Apples approach is similar to that of a console gaming machine. "you have to have our hardware to run our software". Their previous attempts with PowerPC chips was to truly make it a "console war", but they realized people weren't buying Macs for the hardware, they were buying them for the OS. So they changed to Intel to give people the performance they wanted with the OS they wanted. If a clone is allowed, it ruins their whole marketing/business strategy. If they allow clones, they might as well not even bother creating Macs. But, then they'll run in to the same issues as Microsoft where they'll need to support more hardware, and then faulty hardware will make people think that there is a problem with the OS.

As much as I'd love for Apple to allow Mac OS X to be run on commodity hardware, I think their current strategy is the best for them as a company.

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i believe the biggest motivating factor for the intel switch was motorola was unable to produce working chips that were fast enough in large enough quantities to keep up with intel et al.

This is seen easily from the notebook standpoint as Apple desktops were shipping with extreme cooling in the G5 flavor while the fastest PowerPC notebooks were a generation behind in the G4 flavor. G5's never made it into a powerbook due to heat and power consumption issues.

To stay competitive a change had to be made and intel was chosen.

Ya, the PowerPC was a specialty chip and Apple was only a very minor client to IBM. IBM couldn't justify the R&D to keep pace with the intel x86 arch, and thus the PPC fell behind. That left apple's supply chain in dire straights. Combine that with the fact of manufacturing difficulties... When Apple forecasted product they needed IBM to make that amount of specialty chips just for their small little order (by IBM standards) and sometimes it was a problem getting the right numbers - if Apple didn't order them, IBM wasn't making them. Compare that to Apple buying from Intel, where they are just another small client buying a standard product - Intel is churning out their standard chips regardless if they are going to Dell, Lenovo, or Apple, and its a lot easier for them to meet Apples needs.

The switch to Intel was an absolute necessity from a supply chain standpoint.

You're a bit off on the PPC there IMOG. The PPC CPU is still used in the Xbox 360, Wii and the PS3, yes the Cell is essentially a PPC CPU with those DMA-like SPEs helping offload some stuff from the main core. You can even get cell CPUs in IBM's blade servers.

Now, I for one don't want to be able to buy a copy of OS-X and install it on a Dell simply because that would make the operating system suffer from the same driver bloat and driver related issues that Windows does. Not to mention everybody and his brother from here to Moscow voraciously writing Virii for it. It'll still be a better OS but I can understand why Apple wants to keep it in a controlled enviroment. Money aside, it saves them a lot of headaches and pains in the posterior. I have no doubt that OSX could unseat Windows if it were available to be installed on any Dell or HP or eMachine junk you could buy but the people who know it and use it know why that is not a good idea.

FudgeNuggets said:

Now, I for one don't want to be able to buy a copy of OS-X and install it on a Dell simply because that would make the operating system suffer from the same driver bloat and driver related issues that Windows does. Not to mention everybody and his brother from here to Moscow voraciously writing Virii for it.

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there still are viri's out for mac's floating around fudge! its just not as apparent because of a poorly written browser

and besides, who wants a botnet of mac's anyways? at the current state, the ratio from pc to mac is to far from using it to trick grammie into sending DDOS packets unknowingly (note: i'm not condoning this type of behavior, i'ts an example)


i can asure you, if mac's were the mainstream, i bet they would be writing tons of malware for it.

FudgeNuggets said:

You're a bit off on the PPC there IMOG. The PPC CPU is still used in the Xbox 360, Wii and the PS3, yes the Cell is essentially a PPC CPU with those DMA-like SPEs helping offload some stuff from the main core. You can even get cell CPUs in IBM's blade servers.

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I'm not sure I'm a bit off, but maybe I am. Please confirm.

Its my understanding that the PPC chips Apple was ordering were not used in any other major product as a drop in equivalent. Maybe the same architecture, but it wasn't the same chip - so if apple wasn't ordering that kind of chip, it wasn't being made. That is in contrast to Intel, where the chips apple buys are the same ones that Dell and Lenovo are buying.

If I'm wrong I apologize. So am I?

I.M.O.G. said:

I'm not sure I'm a bit off, but maybe I am. Please confirm.

Its my understanding that the PPC chips Apple was ordering were not used in any other major product as a drop in equivalent. Maybe the same architecture, but it wasn't the same chip - so if apple wasn't ordering that kind of chip, it wasn't being made. That is in contrast to Intel, where the chips apple buys are the same ones that Dell and Lenovo are buying.

If I'm wrong I apologize. So am I?

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i always thought mac's had their own ppc architecture untill recently with the swtich to intel based machines.

splat said:

this case is really testing the legality of EULAs. How can you prove who clicked "i accept"?

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you cant which is why EULA's arent considerd a binding contract and are pretty much worthless.

gangaskan said:

i always thought mac's had their own ppc architecture untill recently with the swtich to intel based machines.

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No, apple does not make hardware and never has! first it was IBM ithink? then motorola that made the processors, and now intel, motorola couldnt give apple what it wanted so they moved to intel.

the PPC apple had were in use i beleive but only in special items, like IBM servers, the motorola processors they used i think were also very specific in their usage.

Mr.Guvernment said:

No, apple does not make hardware and never has! first it was IBM ithink? then motorola, and now intel, motorola couldnt give apple what it wanted so they moved to intel.

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Its kinda fuzzy... It was a Motorolla 68k series chip, then around 95 it was an IBM/motorola power PC chip. Development was some kind of joint effort but I believe it was IBMs fab making it.