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Psystar back selling Leopard computers

April 15, 2008
Posted by Tom Krazit


Psystar is back online selling "white box" Macs with a few subtle changes, and one employee has already played the monopoly card.

As you might recall, Psystar's Web site was overwhelmed Monday after it was found to be selling cheap computers with Mac OS X Leopard preinstalled. This caused quite the commotion, as Apple does not license its operating system to other hardware makers, and specifically prohibits (PDF) end users from installing Mac OS X on anything other than an "Apple labeled" computer.

Ars Technica noted that Psystar made several changes to its Web site while it was down Monday. First of all, the product is no longer the OpenMac, it's the Open Computer. Psystar's owner, Rudy Pedraza, told Ars that Psystar did that on their own to "avoid any issues." Wonder what those might be.

The company is also now offering the "OpenPro Computer" in addition to the Open Computer, which might remind you of a certain desktop computer sold by a certain California company that uses a piece of fruit as a logo. That machine costs $999, can be upgraded to quad-core processors, and is available with Leopard preinstalled.

And, in perhaps the most necessary change, they changed the nails-on-a-chalkboard "not non-safe" phrase attached to the description of whether or not you should install Mac OS X updates to your Open Computer. Grammarians, rejoice.

None of those changes will allow Psystar to escape the basic question about its business model: Apple doesn't permit the installation of its operating system on anything but its hardware. One Psystar employee told Information Week that this requirement means Apple is behaving like a monopoly. "What if Microsoft said you could only install Windows on Dell computers?" the employee told IW.


More at: CNet News

[Grav!ty Profile]

Ok so there's nothing really new here except the fact that Psystar are going main stream and seem to have a good EFI emulator. Still, the Mac OS X EULA makes it illegal to run on a "non-Apple" system.

I think a lot of folk will take this up and quite honestly I would like to see Apple/Mac ease up on this and make this legally possible. There'd be a massive switch to the unix/linux based Mac in my opinion.

It's my understanding that one of the only things that makes an apple system so stable is that the hardware Mac runs on is tightly controlled and way more limited than the multitude of possible hardware configurations that are available to the PC but despite that, we should all have the alternative without having to cough up the amount that apple ask for their "PC" hardware. Let's face it, an apple these days is nothing other than a PC with a very specific hardware configuration.

[Allan Profile Website]

I can HONESTLY say, that I am extremly tempted to get one of these badboys.