Meet The Mac-Clone Mystery Man
How's this for a deal. At a fraction of the cost of a comparably equipped machine from Apple, a Web-based company dubbed Psystar is offering a computer you can have loaded up with just about any operating system you choose, including Apple's OS X Leopard.
Context & Ripple Effects
Psystar is commercializing a practice already visible in the do-it-yourself Hackintosh guide: running Apple’s operating system on non-Apple hardware. Four days earlier, the OpenMac’s $399 headless-Mac pitch showed that the appeal was not limited to hobbyists.
The significance is the move from instructions and one-off builds to a Web-based seller offering a configurable machine. Psystar also says Apple’s licensing restrictions violate U.S. monopoly laws, putting the hardware–software tie at the center of its challenge.
First-order effects
- Buyers seeking OS X Leopard gain a lower-cost, configurable alternative to a comparably equipped Apple machine, while Psystar gains a commercial route to serve that demand.
- Apple faces a seller explicitly marketing OS X Leopard on non-Apple hardware, rather than only individual users assembling their own systems.
Second-order effects
- Psystar’s pricing proposition pressures Apple’s integrated hardware-and-software premium by making PC hardware a direct comparison point for OS X buyers.
- Apple’s licensing terms become a competitive constraint as well as a product policy, because Psystar is publicly framing them as the basis of its monopoly-law claim.
Third-order effects
- If commercial clone sellers can sustain supply, OS X’s value proposition may be tested separately from Apple’s hardware design, creating a second-source-compute market around the operating system.
- The dispute points toward competition over who controls the permitted hardware for a proprietary operating system, rather than competition solely among PC makers.
The trend: Consumer computing is testing whether proprietary operating systems can remain tied to a single hardware vendor as low-cost clone sellers turn DIY compatibility into retail products.