Katie MarsalItself attacked for allegedly violating Apple's licenses, Psystar made offense its best defense on Tuesday when it filed a countering lawsuit in federal court, accusing the Mac maker of unfairly squeezing out possible rivals.
By insisting that its software be tied to its hardware, Apple is violating pro-competition laws that include the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act, Psystar claims. Apple is characterized as a monopoly-like entity, abusing its copyright to guarantee its position as the only authorized PC maker for the operating system.
Since Psystar began selling what are effectively Mac clones as of April, the Florida-based company has repeatedly challenged Apple and insisted that Apple is deliberately ratcheting up the prices on Macs knowing that there was no real alternative for running its operating system, although Psystar has never elaborated on this perceived cost difference.
While the plaintiff in the new lawsuit intends to negate the restrictive clauses of the Mac OS X license as well as obtain damages, company chief Rudy Pedraza tells CNET that the goal is simply to make non-Apple Mac OS X systems a possibility rather than forcing complete access to the platform.
"What we want to do is to provide an alternative, an option," he says. "It's not that people don't want to use Mac OS, many people are open to the idea, but they're not used to spending an exorbitant amount of money on something that is essentially generic hardware."
Apple has kept to its traditional silence regarding lawsuits, but in this circumstance won't have that option for much longer; the California-based electronics designer is legally required to respond to Psystar's complaint within 30 days.
Simultaneously, Psystar has no intentions to reverse course even after the threat of an Apple lawsuit intimidated what's allegedly a small portion of its customers. In addition to the OpenComputer and the more recent OpenServ, Pedraza's company is planning a portable computer that would also support Mac OS X through unofficial, community-sourced methods.
Amber Neely
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
254 Comments
Yeah, good luck with those arguments. You'll need it.
Psystar, will you just roll over and die please? Pretty Please? No one wants Mac OS X on cheap PC hardware. This cheapens a genuine Mac experience. Mac hardware and OS X go hand in hand. One without the other is just not quite right.
Since when does the software for anything have to be separable from the hardware? If Psystar is so intent on making Mac clones, why don't they just make a Mac OS X clone that runs Mac apps?
Either Psystar are very rich or very stupid. They don't have a case.
I wish they did. Their original intentions were no doubt good, but they are in over there head now, and they had no right to sell OS X on non-Apple hardware. Despite the amount of people who wanted it.
Since when does the software for anything have to be separable from the hardware? If Psystar is so intent on making Mac clones, why don't they just make a Mac OS X clone that runs Mac apps?
Exactly.
That is the only way they can offer a "true alternative".
Apple made their own system (OS and hardware combo) so the whole anti-competitive yammer is baseless. Now if Apple was trying to keep Psystar from creating their own unique system (OS and hardware) - then they would have a legit complaint - but because they are making money selling hacked Mac systems (using Apple's own OS), they seem to be in for a big fight.
That's part of the reason Microsoft got busted was because they were trying to keep other companies from creating their own unique alternatives to Microsoft's products (i.e. Netscape) - not because they were the only ones selling Windows.