“Psystar is back online selling ‘white-box’ Macs with a few subtle changes, and one employee has already played the monopoly card,” Tom Krazit writes for CNET.
“Since they brought it up, let’s review the basic definition of a monopoly, shall we? And remember, there’s nothing illegal about having a monopoly, it’s only when you use that monopoly for nefarious purposes do you get pinched,” Krazit writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Thank Jobs that somebody else is out there explaining that a monopoly is not illegal, but abusing it is. Right, Microsoft?
Krazit continues, “The business section of Answers.com says, ‘A monopoly is a market condition in which a single seller controls the entire output of a particular good or service. A firm is a monopoly if it is the sole seller of its product and if its product has no close substitutes. Close substitutes are those goods that could closely take the place of a particular good; for example, a Pepsi soft drink would be a close substitute for a Coke drink, but a juice drink would not.'”
“Debate the aesthetics all you want, but I’d argue that Windows and Linux are, for the purposes of personal computing, close substitutes to Mac OS X. They can run a personal computer. They can connect you to the Internet. They can run a basic suite of productivity applications,” Krazit writes. “You may prefer Mac OS X for a variety of reasons, but Apple’s requirement that you can only run Mac OS X on Apple hardware doesn’t prevent you from using a personal computer.”
“The meat of Psystar’s sales pitch is that they can sell you a Mac for cheaper than Apple. So let’s consider the third element of a monopoly: the ability to set prices,” Krazit writes. “Again from Answers.com: ‘The major difference between a monopoly and a competitive firm is the monopoly’s ability to influence the price of its output. Because a competitive firm is small relative to the market, the price of its product is determined by market conditions.'”
Krazit writes, “There’s a long-standing argument about whether or not Macs are more expensive pound-for-pound with Windows PCs. But however you slice it, Apple doesn’t have the ability to force people to pay astronomical prices for the Mac; if Macs cost four times as much as similarly configured Windows PCs, no one would buy them.”
MacDailyNews Take: We certainly would (we’d just keep our Macs in service even longer than we do now).
Krazit continues, “I think they’re tilting at windmills, but I’d be very interested to see if Psystar has the wherewithal (and the cash) needed to finance a legal test of Apple’s end-user license agreement for Leopard. Courts have ruled on specific provisions within EULAs, but it doesn’t appear that the general concept has really been tested under U.S. law. Maybe it’s time. But until that day, companies are not required to sell products simply because somebody wants that product.”
There is more in the full article – recommended – here.
@@yet another steve
1) No absolutely not they are all entitled to their opinions as are the Mac faithful. However. Apple seem to be making desirable products and have happy customers so surely they are doing something right.
2) Who said that? I am in the bracket of working to lower middle class as in I have academic skills but not that much cash in the bank, however I happily buy Macs and often reconditioned last year models as long as I get a warranty. Nobody really needs to get the latest models. it’s just a personal obsession for a few to do so isn’t it?
3) As OS X requires a far smaller system spec to function happily you cannot directly compare Apples to any other PC that is running Vista or even XP. So taking that in mind I think the Mac Mini is great value. After all it is tiny and has a great build quality too. Also it has Wifi/Bluetooth2 and loads of USB ports and firewire out of the box. Put these into your cheap PC box and see the price go up. then add iLife equivalent software, a subscription to a good anti virus system and the mini is a bargain.
Also Apple’s $18bn in the bank allows Mac users to breathe easily knowing Apple has enough cash to further develop OS X and expand the company keeping Apple alive to allow us choices instead of having to use MS or Linux (not that I think Linux is bad but it is still immature as a desktop environment).
hi british mac head, glad you saw that i wasnt trying to troll, i dont really think any of the so called anti apple things that i have read on here are actually as such, people just want to take them that way and i have to say that the balance of reporting on here is poor.
The mac mini is either over priced or under powered though for what it is that i would think we can agree on no? id actually like the mac mini to be the gateway product, psystar wouldnt be out there if apple was doing a good job with the mini.
im a fellow brit and quite up with european laws, heres a quote i found
At issue are national laws that bar companies from “tying” products so that consumers have to buy one to get the other. The laws present a major challenge to Apple’s global strategy of cutting an exclusive deal with mobile operators and taking a share of the profits from calling plans.
This was obviously originally in regard to the iphone but the issue still stands also in regard to the mac/os x, i know the argument in germany is going higher (european law courts i believe) but I feel the eventual outcome will see mac and os x being untied and also the tying of the iphone to a single carrier.
For example in Britain o2 are getting away with charging a blue murder iphone tariff, but if vodaphone had the iphone too they wouldnt dare do this, its almost tantamount to price fixing as there is no equivalent handset in the market. This issues will come to pass on Apple in the long term.
ah i see we disagree after all on the mac mini, i think we will stay disagreed, its overpriced or underpowered, it could be so much more than it is, its the product that could really eat windows market share and open up the world of mac to people. May be massive market share doesnt equate necessarily to the massive profit margin that they already have but it would be profit none the less and not by cannabilising mac sales but by shifters. I agree with you totally about the capabilities of os x, its great and yes as a half windows vista half os x user i know about the difference in system footprint, i think the market is there for this psystar thing because of the poor value for money of apple’s offering at the entry level bracket.
I don’t know why people are getting their panties in a wad over this. According to a Wired article, there’s nothing Apple can do about it, UNLESS they have a patent on the EFI emulation software Psystar is using, which is unlikely. EULAs are just pretty unenforceable scare tactics.
Once the cost of Leopard is added (not included in the $399 price), a Firewire card, iLife, keyboard,mouse and monitor, you’re in iMac territory anyway. And a 950 video chip? Apple doesn’t even use that anymore. This looks like a low end come-on like Dell is famous for.
You are a bunch of Idiots.
This is a good thing, Apple needs to License the software, the money is in Licensing, look how much MSFT has made off sharepoint, and its shitty.
Plus, really, why should we be limited to Apple hardware, are we not capable of picking it out for ourselves, and is Apple hardware not competitive enough to stand on its own?
Joe
Stop the ignorance. Apple makes great software, and awesome hardware, but dont limit your users.
I’ve been on the dole for ten years and can’t afford a mac. I think goverments should be compelled under international human rights law to give me and people like me a mac.
@Joe
The only reason a Mac is as stable as it is, is because Apple knows every piece of hardware that may be put into it. Have you ever noticed how many Mac OS software updates fix crashes and other hardware/software related problems? This is because Apple can fix the problem knowing exactly the hardware that’s causing it. Now, allow any piece of hardware to be used and see how much trouble Apple has keeping Leopard running smoothly. Even Psystar admits that they used known Mac compatible components to get their OpenComputer working properly.
Speaking of Psystar… Maybe you’d be interested in reading about the company making this “Mac.” Maybe you can shed some light on their history or perhaps their strange business procedures.
if they were smart, they’d stick to selling the computer, and not Apple’s Software.
That would disengage Apple’s lawsuit.
I would think the percentage of people wanting to essentially mail order a cheap machine that may not even support future upgrades of the CURRENT Mac OS is probably limited to the uber geeky (or at least minimally geeky); I could be wrong, but that doesn’t seem to be the segment Apple is pursuing these days.
Also, think jail broken iPhones. And no, I don’t think that makes a case for what they’re doing, as unlike the iPhone, the Mac already has the functionality required by most. I guess the big concern would be the eating into hardware sales, but I don’t expect to see these showing up in the Apple Stores anytime soon, and at $399 a pop I can’t imagine the good people at Psystar are busting out the champagne for early retirement.
I can tell you that something like this would never suffice for the heavy duty professional work a lot of Mac users do; it’s not even a consideration. That’s my bottom line.
Apple will license OSX simply because they’ll make more money that way and all you mac heads will love them for it. It’ll be PowerPC Intel switch all over again. Remember those crappy slow junk Intel CPUs … wait a minute they’re great now!
And oops! I almost forgot. Some of us here were around during the last round of the clone wars, and it did indeed get fugly. Who knows what’ll happen.
This is a double edged sword for Apple, so likely they’re taking their time like they do with developing the OS X or the iPhone.
1) The Good – Doubt the sales will really hurt Apple right now, like hacked iPhones. It may lead to more people liking the Mac OS X and generate more headlines.
2) The Bad – No QC is enforced on the non-Apple Mac, so user experience might suffer and get turned off to Macs.
3) The Ugly – Easiest road for Apple to take might just be a big banner on their home page saying Psystar is breaking the law and OS support is null and void when it’s not on an Apple. Psysters/Dell are making money on cheap h/w using Mac OS as attraction while paying no royalty to Apple for using the Mac name and reputation to sell their PC boxes.
The Unforseeable – Next thing you know OS X shows up on hacked Nokia or other iPhone iClones.
if Macs cost four times as much as similarly configured Windows PCs, no one would buy them.”
MacDailyNews Take: We certainly would (we’d just keep our Macs in service even longer than we do now).
Really. MDN, would you “certainly” be first in line if Apple re-introduced the $10,000 LISA? (~$20,000 inflation-adjusted)
Or would you be bemoaning Apple’s new cool but severely market-limited product?
If cost is no object, walk the walk and get yourselves a MS Big Ass Table.
If you want Leopard installed, you have to add $155 to the price. And if you want iLife, add another $79, purchased separately and not pre-installed. There’s no FireWire, unless you pay $50 more.
So for the model that’s equivalent to a Mac mini, the actual cost is $583. But the Mac mini ($599) also includes built-in wireless networking and BlueTooth, which are not options on the Psystar. The Psystar has more base RAM and hard drive space, but I wouldn’t say its price is a huge bargain, considering each upgrade of OS from Apple is bound to cause huge headaches.
Just wondering if anyone has google mapped their address? They like… aren’t working out of a suburban neighborhood basement or anything, are they?
Let’s look at it this way:
BMW has an absolute monopoly on the BMW market.
Is that illegal, making a case for startup Beemer clones? Or do BWM’s own customers, along with the Yugos of this world, help keep the maker honest?
When Apple starts foisting crap onto the world ala MS, then we’ll talk about monopolies.
You want a cheap Mac? Go check out your nearest research university’s surplus store. Pretty much any kind of Mac you can think of, for dirt cheap. Generally, they’re sans OS. But so are these. Is it brand new? Nope. But you can find one with similar specs as these, for similar price, plus you still get Apple’s support. Why go with Psystar? Well…ya shouldn’t.
Real simple
Apple introduces a “key code” for software activation
Mac OS X 10.5 retail, $599.00
up grade for existing “Apple Computers” $129.00
support only for OS X used on Apple Computers
Hmmm.. I hope none of you who believe OSX is a universal right work for companies that have their own end user licensing agreements with customers. Hell, I could make the same argument about any software or anything else. Any company comes up with a great product and want to control its’ use is a monopoly? The whole argument is just plain stupid. The principal issue is the right of a company to stipulate the EULA within the bounds of the law, if you don’t like it buy something else or make your own. If I rent a car I agree to alot of things.
So all you for whom EULA is a part of the business you work for, let me know and I’ll set up a product which encourages your customers to break their EULA. Let’s see what happens.
What total bullshit.
How can Apple have a monopoly when they have around 5% of the global OS market?
This will be laughed out of court.
re: Oil is a natural resource. There is no comparison.
WRONG!
Crude oil is a natural resource.
Oil sold to the public is a refined product based on crude oil.
re: whilst im not particularly a fan of the psystar outfit, there does need to be an affordable mac, apple achieved this with the ipod without diluting the brand, no one thinks the mac mini is good value for money do they? it feels like a token gesture poorly updated, underpowered and underadvertised.
—
The Mac Mini is designed for its purpose.
An affordable Mac for everyone who needs light or standard daily use.
You wanna run 40 apps at once?
Then buy a Mac Pro!
@John E, not saying that you think this per say, but why does everyone seem to think that buying RAM for their apple product always has to come from Apple? I have been buying all my RAM for my Apple products from crucial or some other brand name company for years and installing myself and I save 10-50% on the RAM. You don’t void your warantee though you might want to put your old RAM back or just say it was installed by a Apple retailer if you send it in to be repaired. Its not that big of a deal to do it yourself as it only takes like 10 seconds if that in most cases. And a 14 year old could do it themselves as I had done with my dad’s computers back when I was that old. Just take basic precautions and everything is good. Never had any of my computers in the shop once.
@moocho, as for the sony example you gave I think sony would just shoot themselves in the foot if they restricted their music to only their players, as I think the music industry is doing with the DRM stuff on their cds and making them more expensive to get.
Computer companies may or may not be doing the same thing, but OSX is not made for the mass of computers out there, as sony’s music is made for the masses of people out there, it is made for the Mac, so I think Apple has every right to restrict it to what it was made for while those willing to void their warantee and be slightly illegal and have no tech support can waste their time and energy only getting a semi-Mac and never actually getting the full experience.
To be honest all I want is a mac mini with a real video card and a real hard drive. Thats all. The mini and its price point are fine with me, its the lack of a real video card and a real sata fast HD that kills it for me.
In fact, you could just make the video upgadeable and sell it like it is and i would be happy. Byt being stuck with the intel 950 is poor sport for a desktop machine. I have a macbook and the intel 950 is fine, of course i dont use my laptop for gaming, i use it work.