You know, I'm inclined to lean towards what inovica was saying. We do all know Psystar now. I wouldn't be surprised if this is all just a well executed marketing plan by psystar.
The upside: Hundreds of thousands of curious people visit their site to see the company that's standing up to Apple. They may even buy the system to get OS X before it's taken off of the market. The company may even do some damage to Apple's PR by bringing the high prices and 1-1 comparisons to the attention of a lot of people.
The downside: Apple tells them that they can't offer this computer any more. There are some other negligible downsides like the cost of removing the product or if Apple sues then they might have to do some "reverse advertising" because of a court order.
I doubt that this company is going to go through an expensive and lengthy battle with Apple over this.
So in the end, I think that Psystar either has a brilliant marketing plan, or just got lucky by all of the coverage.
I think apple has a vary strong case. EX: Faulty ram is frequently causes systems to crash so Psystar's cheep hardware would damage the perception of OS X's quality. Which harms apples brand.
I'm not saying that Apple doesn't have a case, but I think the approach you're suggesting is a bit dicey.
If Apple were afraid of having cheap RAM used in their systems, why would they allow end-user-upgradable RAM compatible with third-party standards in their own systems?
Another possible line of attack is that the retail versions of OS X are only upgrade versions for systems that already have OS X, so they don't cover the real cost of the produce.
I am not suggesting that they only use one line of attack. My point that even if the EULA is not valid and the right of first sale let's the company install OS X on custom systems Apple can still bring up other forms of "Harm" to stop them.
As to the ram issue they could say the type of user who would upgrade RAM would link a string of crashes to the RAM they added vs. assuming OS X is just as crappy as Vista. However, a new user given a system with bad ram is more likely to blame the OS than the hardware. So even if it's ok for them to build systems for internal use they can't sell systems to the public and say it's running OS X. (And even if it's identical HW the apple support network is better able to handle issues which would otherwise harm the OS X brand etc etc)
I do not see anything particularly cheap in what they are selling. I have three PCs assembled from "cheap" components that run fine for over 8 years.
I haven't seen recent Apple products, but the original iMac
was a piece of overpriced cheap junk. In addition to the bad hardware it had a horrible OS (8.5) that constantly froze (even Win 98 was far more stable).
Why am I telling this? Because also in those days there were legions of Mac users who would tell you about the mythical superiority of Apple products.
I do not know about US law, but I'm pretty sure that in Europe Apple would not have a chance in court with this.
I'm not an apple hater but think of it this way...spec out a mbp at 2400 and compare it to a thinkpad with the same specs. Is the case and "industrial design" worth 1200 bucks?
Thinkpad: (lenovo.com -> laptop -> 15" -> nvidia -> 256mb vram -> customize -> 2.4ghz -> 2x1GB -> 250gb -> wifi n -> bt -> continue -> webcam -> continue -> $1684.16 (on sale, down from $1952.95).
They're not the same computer, so you can't get exactly the same specs. The Mac has a lower screen resolution, shorter battery life, and no option to get a fingerprint scanner. The Thinkpad is heavier and thicker, doesn't have a slot-loading drive, digital audio I/O, Firewire, a built-in camera, a lighted keyboard, or a breakaway power cord. On specs alone, I wouldn't say either is better: I could imagine any one of these factors could be a dealbreaker, depending on your use of a laptop.
So the market says, no, good design isn't worth 1200 bucks. It's worth a little over $300, and that's when the competition has a "sale".
Why would Apple care? We're going to forget who Pystar is when this is over, but we're going to remember Apple, and the fact that market demand for their secret sauce is so high that companies will literally put themselves out of business to get a piece of it.
If I'm the Psystar marketing department, I'm trying to make hay while the sun is shining. If they can't pursue the Mac thing, they have a small window to try to shift interest to something they can actually sell.
If you're the Pystar marketing department, you probably have very little time to build that strategy while also screwing motherboards into ATX cases and driving boxes over to the FedEx shipping office.
Come on. With any complex product, there's always going to be a rhetorical construct where you can claim somebody has a "monopoly". Do you really think you can distribute X86 "routers" running patched IOS, or roll your own car ECU with Bosch's firmware code?
Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior wasn't simply forcing strict terms on who could use Windows; it was using Windows as a cudgel to prevent competing software from being installed on hardware it didn't sell.
Actually, my impression is that restricting third-party software isn't illegal in general either. If Tivo cuts a deal for Samsung to make Samsung-branded Tivo boxes, Tivo can still include a clause in the contract that stops them from loading additional software on board, right?
The issue was that Microsoft did in fact have a de facto monopoly (>90% share) on operating systems, and was leveraging that monopoly for control of other markets. EULAs have always been a dicey legal area, but no sensible judge is going to throw out Apple's EULA simply on the grounds that they have a monopoly when they are obviously the (still distant) #2 player in the OS market.
Am I missing the other legal barrier Cisco has to prevent people from adapting IOS to aftermarket hardware, though, or is that just EULA? I note with amusement that Cisco has a much more constrictive and anticompetitive monopoly in switching than Microsoft ever had.
Good question. I don't follow Cisco closely, but it may simply be the EULA (and the team of legal attack dogs behind it).
It may also be the implicit expectation that computers are made to run other software while switches are closed-case boxes engineered as a single unit. This is pretty stupid to most engineers, because there isn't much technical difference between the two, but sometimes legal things work that way. It's also possible that Cisco has an antitrust suit in it's future (but probably only under a Democratic administration).
Do we know Apple has said anything to Pystar about EULA violations? I would guess that if Apple has shutdown Pystar it is because they are violating Apple's trademark by selling a product called OpenMac.
If Pystar was selling a computer called OpenDell they'd get a call from Dell.
The upside: Hundreds of thousands of curious people visit their site to see the company that's standing up to Apple. They may even buy the system to get OS X before it's taken off of the market. The company may even do some damage to Apple's PR by bringing the high prices and 1-1 comparisons to the attention of a lot of people.
The downside: Apple tells them that they can't offer this computer any more. There are some other negligible downsides like the cost of removing the product or if Apple sues then they might have to do some "reverse advertising" because of a court order.
I doubt that this company is going to go through an expensive and lengthy battle with Apple over this.
So in the end, I think that Psystar either has a brilliant marketing plan, or just got lucky by all of the coverage.