With Psystar recently filing for bankruptcy, another clone company has popped up...
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New Mac clone maker, Quo Computer
- Thread starter TwinCities Dan
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Yeah...We shall wait and see... People forget how long it took Psystar to even get started shipping...
I think there's potentially value in what they're doing for Apple. What if instead of suing them, Apple modified their EULA so that Apple-specified hardware can be used, such as Quo computers. This would still give them the same protection against clones unless they lose to Pystar even with their EULA. And if they do it right, they can have Quo only do lower-end hardware that Apple doesn't want to get into directly. This would increase their user base, which allows them to sell more software.
Nate
Nate
They may decide to give you the computer with an unformatted hard drive, a special "driver disc" 
, and a sealed copy of OS X.
What you do with the three when you receive it is your business...
, and a sealed copy of OS X.What you do with the three when you receive it is your business...
The problem is that hardware vendors outside of Apple are not invested heavily into the futures of Apple and therefore can easily afford to undercut the competition due to lack of R&D overhead. All the hardware vendor has to do is pay for licensing. Once your sole partner (or partners) undercut the mother ship, the mothership fails becuase their buisness model (selling hardware) suffers and eventially leads to a poor software (Apple's other business) due to lack of profits. It happened before - the cloners would just undersell the hardware to make profits in volume the way that Dell and HP do thier business. It's raxor thin margins, but lethal for Apple. Cloners have little investment into Apple outside of licence fees what cannot compare to the breaks that MS can offer their busines partners (which inevitably would include these cloners due to the flexability of Windows licencing)
Microsoft does not suffer from these problems becasue they are a pure software company. Apple is not. It is marred for failure.
Wow.. is this guy for real???
Agreed. There is no way that Apple will look positively on this.
Good luck with that. Personally, I wouldn't count on them being around very long.
Apple are to sell computers, and have no choice to sell their computers at a "premium" price. Otherwise, with such a small userbase, how would they manage to pay for the development of OS X? If they suddenly stop selling Macs, they will lose lots and lots of money.
They're insane.
Sounds like an excellent way for the foolish people who thought of this to lose their shirts.
Apple is never going to stand for this. Jobs is principled and will fight this to his bottom dollar. Even without using MS-style dirty tricks, Apple can bury these guys in the legal system for as long as it takes.
Trying something like this right after Psystar?
With prices starting "under $900"? Why not just buy a Mini or wait for a sale on the 21" iMac? There can't be many people wanting to spend nearly $1,000 just to "beat the Evil Apple" when you can buy a new Mini + generic monitor for this price range.... without the risk of Apple disabling your OS at some point.
I feel the main reason they are destined to failure is for using OSX itself.
Couldn't they come up with a BSD-ish UNIX OS that closely mimics OSX without having to confront Apple directly? That's financial suicide.
I'm all for ideas that give people more alternatives to MS but this is just idiotic.
Oh well,
What were they thinking?
Keri
PS. If Apple does get all "dirty tricks" on these guys like MS would.... they'll probably end up in Prison or Public Housing for the rest of their lives while trying to pay down billions in damages without any resources.
PPS. Probably the only way to try to pull this off would be to sell it without any OSX... and have the user procure and install it.
Then the user is subjected to the wrath of Apple. Yeeks!
Sounds like an excellent way for the foolish people who thought of this to lose their shirts.
Apple is never going to stand for this. Jobs is principled and will fight this to his bottom dollar. Even without using MS-style dirty tricks, Apple can bury these guys in the legal system for as long as it takes.
Trying something like this right after Psystar?
With prices starting "under $900"? Why not just buy a Mini or wait for a sale on the 21" iMac? There can't be many people wanting to spend nearly $1,000 just to "beat the Evil Apple" when you can buy a new Mini + generic monitor for this price range.... without the risk of Apple disabling your OS at some point.
I feel the main reason they are destined to failure is for using OSX itself.
Couldn't they come up with a BSD-ish UNIX OS that closely mimics OSX without having to confront Apple directly? That's financial suicide.
I'm all for ideas that give people more alternatives to MS but this is just idiotic.
Oh well,
What were they thinking?
Keri
PS. If Apple does get all "dirty tricks" on these guys like MS would.... they'll probably end up in Prison or Public Housing for the rest of their lives while trying to pay down billions in damages without any resources.
PPS. Probably the only way to try to pull this off would be to sell it without any OSX... and have the user procure and install it.
Then the user is subjected to the wrath of Apple. Yeeks!
Wow, you guys don't remember the 90s at all do you ?
Been there, done that, almost died, there's no way Apple is going back to clones.Or maybe that's what you guys want, Apple to die. Ah I see...
Neither the Mini nor iMac have expansion slots. A $900 tower would likely be a quad core with 4GB to 8GB RAM with a PCI-e 2.0 x16 slot and a few other PCI and PCI-e slots.
Wow, you guys don't remember the 90s at all do you ?
Or maybe that's what you guys want, Apple to die. Ah I see...
Of course I remember. At the time Apple was circling the drain with and this was a last ditch effort. The people buying clones were mainly previous Apple customers. Outside of the current user base there were not many people interested in using the Mac OS.
Now Apple is a successful company with many that want their products with budgets too small for a Mac or expect the CPU power of a quad core i5 or i7 with 6+ GB RAM when exceeding $700. So they may or may not do well allowing clones.
They could always set the license pricing for OS X to equal the average profit they would expect from selling a Mac. It seems to me they would then ultimately make more money and consumers would not have to wait out long upgrade droughts on Macs. Though this would certainly drive up the price of the clones.
Then there's nothing else to say, you'll never see clones and you remember why you won't.
The reason why giving clones another go would be insane. They are successful without them, last time it almost killed them. Hum... I don't think you need an MBA to figure that one out.
The reason why giving clones another go would be insane. They are successful without them, last time it almost killed them. Hum... I don't think you need an MBA to figure that one out.
Plus apple sells software to drive hardware sales. How would clones improve apple's hardware sales. They won't.
The clones nearly killed apple because people starting buying non-apple hardware and apple's revenue from sales was drying up. They're a hardware company that leverages well designed/written software to sell hardware.
while I understand why apple will block clones but one thing Apple should take from the clones is it is showing crystal clear to Apple that people like OSX but are not willing to pay the huge Apple premium or the larger issue is with Apple you have to pay for a lot of extra crap to get the one or 2 funictions that you want.
For example on a laptop only way to get a 15in screen is buy a Mac pro at a huge cost when really you just want a Macbook hardware with the 15 in screen. All the extra cost is crap and a huge premuim.
Or you can look at the desktop. Want some minor upgradeable or a good graphic card you have to pay 1-2k extra in pure premium cost and get server grade stuff when you do not need it.
The these illegal clone makers are showing Apple that their is a HUGE market and demand in an area that Apple is currently not selling anything.
For example on a laptop only way to get a 15in screen is buy a Mac pro at a huge cost when really you just want a Macbook hardware with the 15 in screen. All the extra cost is crap and a huge premuim.
Or you can look at the desktop. Want some minor upgradeable or a good graphic card you have to pay 1-2k extra in pure premium cost and get server grade stuff when you do not need it.
The these illegal clone makers are showing Apple that their is a HUGE market and demand in an area that Apple is currently not selling anything.
I like their marketing. I would never leave Apple for laptops but my next desktop will be a Hackintosh.
A few people have been demanding such a system from Apple for years. Many are already running Hackintoshes and wouldn't spend the extra money for a store-bought Hackimtosh anyway.
Apple has chosen to ignore this market for their own reasons. Lack of profit is the most likely.
They are most certainly not going to support non-Apple hardware such as "regular" PCI slots or the vast multitude of antiquated hardware that plugs into them... If for no other reson than Apple will get the blame for compatibility issues that someone else causes.
So basically, if you want OSX, do it Apple's way or not at all.
Unless you want every point upgrade to disable your OS and possibly hear from Apple' legal department that is.
I still hope someone other than Apple will offer viable alternatives to MS,
Keri
Psystar sold 734 machines.
I think what Apple takes from clones is that most people ignore them, and the few who buy them aren't worth the effort.
Wow I figure by the people supporting Psystar that it was showing people really want some lower price alternatives. Who knows how many Hackitashes their are out there. Based on these boards I can see the demand those those type of computers is pretty high.
Apple laptops are ok but still very limited and you have to pay a HUGE permium for a larger screen. If you want any real upgradibly you have to pay an arm and a leg for a bunch of crap you do not want or need.
If Apple would simply make a reasonably priced tower ($1,600- 2,000), these people would not be in existence. If they continue to ignore this market, these kinds of companies will continue to pop up.
The Clone Wars revisited i see. Once again another company fails to learn from history. I'm actually shocked that the Power Computing moniker hasn't been resurrected.
Anyway we all know how this will turn out. Sunday Bloody Sunday
Anyway we all know how this will turn out. Sunday Bloody Sunday
While I agree, that it would be nice to see Apple make the computer you describe (or even the often dreamt of mini-tower) they have chosen not to. Given that Psystar didn't even sell 1,000 computers why would another company choose to test this out?
Apple is going to simply send their lawyers after this company and rightly so.