Steffy reports, “The two are leading a case that could open the door for lower-priced imitations, or clones, of Apple’s high-dollar Macintosh computers and enable PC makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard to sell Apple’s operating software.”
“Earlier this summer, the attorneys agreed to defend Psystar, a family-owned Florida business that builds computers with Apple’s operating system and sells them for about half the price… Apple sued the company in July 2008, claiming the Psystar clones violated Apple’s software licenses,” Steffy reports.
“The case seems a slam-dunk. Apple specifies that its operating system can only be installed on Apple hardware. Along the way, Psystar filed for bankruptcy. In June, Psystar President and co-founder Rudy Pedraza asked Camara to take over the company’s defense,” Steffy reports. “For Camara, it seemed like the perfect case.”
Steffy reports, “Camara & Sibley has five lawyers and five support staffers, but it shuns hourly billing, long the maintstay of the legal profession. Instead, the firm charges a flat rate, and for big cases like Psystar, it gets nothing if its lawyers lose. Hourly billing is simply a way for law firms to mitigate risk, and risk doesn’t bother Camara.”
Steffy reports, “Camara is something of a legal wunderkind. He entered Harvard Law School in 2001 at age 17 and graduatedmagna cum laude two years later. Nyberg’s background is also unusual, having been an engineer for Netscape before going to law school.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We can’t wait until Camara & Sibley win this case. Not only will they get paid and be able to afford a real office (and maybe even a nice legal name change for poor Kiwi), but Apple’s Mac OS X will rapidly overtake the POS Windows in worldwide operating system market share. Even better, precedent will be set that enable others to do the same type of things such as forcing Sony to license their PS3 system software to Microsoft for inclusion on Xbox and to Nintendo for the Wii (and vice versa, in all possible combinations). Man, this is going to be great!
“The two are leading a case that could open the door for lower-priced imitations, or clones, of Apple’s high-dollar Macintosh computers and enable PC makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard to sell Apple’s operating software.”
OR NOT
Chrysler has sold rebadged Mercedes cars and trucks will soon sell rebadged Fiats.
WTF was your point Rike?
@rattlemouse
Do you not get it, or have you been of your antipsychotic meds too long?
Psystar isn’t worth the gunpowder it would take to blow them all to hell. Get it? HOWEVER . . . should they (but not in a million years) prevail in this case, HP, Dell, Sony, Gateway, Lenovo, et al., would then start selling boxes with a REAL operating system on them (OS X), and Apple would suffer greatly.
Psystar must, then and necessarily, die, and the sooner the better. Death to all rip-off snake-oil salesmen!
Not in Judge Alsup’s court anyway and if the new Florida case and the ok to ship systems with Mac OS X Snow Leopard came from Camara & Sibley and is not Psystar acting on it’s own expect Judge Alsup to be extra hard on Psystar and it’s legal team! Federal Judges have no sense of humor for the antics that Psystar and Camara & Sibley have been playing. Contempt of court willful destruction of evidence are just some of the things that Psystar and it’s owners employees and contractors could be charged with.
As I said before:
“Pissing off a Federal Judge that is going to be ruling on a case that you are a Plaintiff or Defendant in is not a good practice. There is still Apple summery ruling request that Judge Alsup hasn’t ruled on. Their are ethics and missing/destroyed evidence issues pending against Psystar that Judge Alsup as not yet ruled on. Their was the Bankruptcy delay tactic that Judge Alsup as not ruled on. Now their is this new Florida complaint against Apple by Psystar that is likely to be dismissed with prejudice by either the Florida Judge or transfered to Judge Alsup who will unquestionably dismiss it with prejudice.
My Mom is a Federal Judge for the 9th Circuit as she has always told me never piss off the Judge. At this point Psystar is not only pissing off Judge Alsup they are basically pissing on Judge Alsup and his authority over the case. Expect Psystar to get pissed on by Judge Alsup at the end of this case if not sooner.”
I see the Fake Rattiemouse is back, trolling on behalf of Psystar. Folks, listen, I apologise for that guy who’s stolen my login name. As a former Psystar shill myself, I can state quite unequivocally–Psystar’s computers are crap. Ugly, loud, unstable, and–of course!–cheap, cheap, cheaply made. OSX is far too good to load onto one of them. The only way Psystar can attract customers is by stealing Apple’s IP. That’s the end of the story.
Even if Apple were to lose this case, they would then opt to sell a retail version of the OS, for something like $500. Upgrade versions would be $129, the same as before. Once you realize that, you’ll understand that clones won’t cannibalize Macs. People just didn’t understand that an upgrade price is different than a retail price. The so-called price premium would disappear, since it’s a myth, to begin with.
Even if our random-results lawsuit-lottery system scores an unlikely win for Psystar, Apple retains ultimate control – they can simply stop selling OS X at retail.
They could build something a secure purchasing system into OS X, so that future upgrades could be ordered only from within the OS itself. With the secure-purchasing and app authentication they’ve built into the iPhone, they could even have something similar in OS X, purchasing and downloading OS updates directly. Just as with the iPhone, the Mac OS would be tied inextricably to the hardware.
Of course, that would be significantly less convenient for their customers, as well as raising Windows Genuine Advantage-style privacy concerns, which is why I don’t think Apple wants to go there unless they absolutely have to.
But if it does come down to that, Apple still has ultimate control. It’s just a question of how badly the Psystar case will cause inconvenience for Apple customers in the future.
Simple1, “MDN was totally being sarcastic!!!”
NOOOOOO! Good name BTW.
@Randian
Thanks for agreeing with me Randian. If Dell sells a PC with OS X on it, it will be very successful since Apple hardware is overpriced and not worth it. Thanks again.
Ok, I’ll call MDN’s Take, and raise …
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MDN and others know this a no-brainer – Precedent back to day one
But “IF” – yea yea, but just play along, ok …
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If Psystar wins … Great – Let’s have a Party
Cause now the door is open for all kinda fun things to happen – read examples above …
And Bless Your Heart MDN, just the schadenfreude in ya, and we love for it, Man …
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Now … oh yea, that “raise” …
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In other ways – who’s gives a rat’s ass if Psystar wins or not
Desktop getting ready to say Bye-Bye to its Big Slice of Pie™ … sooner later, maybe sooner
iPhone – First iStep
iThing™ – Coming Soon
To Store Near You
Works Like Magic … and Boy Have We Patented It™
_ … _._.
and how ya say that name … piss-tar or pie-star ?
Psystar and its lawyers aren’t underdogs… they’re just dogs.
I can’t wait to see M$ wither and die.
OK, lets try this again:
Apple sells hardware. They make their margins on HARDWARE.
To sell the OS (for any amount that does not cover the margin) would be the death of the hardware business. To sell the OS for the amount needed to cover said margin would be the death of the OS business.
For Apple to make any appreciable amount of money on selling the OS to OEM’s such as Dell, Acer, etc. They would have to;
1. Sell it to the OEM at a considerably discounted rate (MS makes very little per computer for OS installs).
2. Make damned sure that OSX was perfectly compatible with the computers they were being installed on (easy with a Mac, almost impossible with commodity PCs).
3. Increase their support staff to new heights to deal with all the tech support nightmares that would result in the OS NOT working correctly (like Microsoft).
So,
Apple should not license their OS, should sue these morons into the ground and finally continue to make computers that are simple and elegant to use… that despite all the incessant whining are not too expensive unless you are will to settle for cheap dross.
People who want buy Macs now will still buy them even if they license it to all the generic boxes. I like a quality integrated system. It’s the cheap bastards who buy generic boxes now that will switch. And I don’t really want them in OS X party now or later.
/* What Psystar is doing is no different than Microsoft adapting Windows to run on a Mac, Camara said. */
Oh really… First off- Microsoft didn’t ‘adapt’ Windows to run on a Mac. Windows runs on Intel chips- Apple figured out how to emulate BIOS with EFI. (bootcamp) – Parallels, Fusion & VirtualBox do the virtualization magic. This is done WITHOUT violating license agreements. Windows is allowed to run on optional hardware. That’s the idea.
These lawyers don’t have a chance if this is the base argument. Even Judge Ito would see through this.
If Psystar wins they lose!!
If they win Apple has to license OS X to ANY COMPANY!!!
Why would people buy a POS from Psystar when they could get an OS X machine from ASUS, Dell, HP or Toshiba. The fact that there the only Mac cloner is 100% of there business model.
Apple wins Psystar disappears!
Apple loses Psystar disappears!
Oh and by the way if Apple loses, MS loses.
If Apple loses MS would be forced to License the xbox platform. And Sony would be forced to license the PSP and Play Station platform. Palm would be forced to license its new OS as would Nokia.
So you really think thats going to ever happen !!!!!!!!
“If Dell sells a PC with OS X on it, it will be very successful since Apple hardware is overpriced and not worth it. Thanks again.”
No moron, no. You fail at thinking. Please consider donating your brain to medical science, since you obviously aren’t using it.
It wouldn’t matter if Dell sold a PC with OS X on it for exactly the same price as Apple sells Macs. The effect would be the exact same as if they threw OS X on cheap pieces of shit. It makes no difference because what would harm Apple is the splintering of the market itself, not the actual price and/or quality of the hypothetical Mac clones.
I still don’t get why a third party has to rule over this matter…
Apple created OS X and they have every right over they’re own IP. Case closed.
iMacs, Mac Minis and Macbooks are unique and reasonally priced. The Mac Tower Pro is over priced, over weight (bad for the enviroment because Apple transports these via air) and the technology is over 2 years old. Competition would benifit users with more upto date hardware.
@unnamed chimp
“It wouldn’t matter if Dell sold a PC with OS X on it for exactly the same price as Apple sells Macs. The effect would be the exact same as if they threw OS X on cheap pieces of shit. It makes no difference because what would harm Apple is the splintering of the market itself, not the actual price and/or quality of the hypothetical Mac clones.”
Thank you for agreeing with me in that Apple’s hardware cannot compete with those such as Dell and Acer. You yourself say that if they entered the market, they would splinter it.
Clearly, Apple hardware is not worth the premium price it costs.
If Apple loses this case, why would they have to license Mac OS X to anyone?
Mac OS X is available at retail. If let’s say Dell wants to sell Mac OS X preloaded on their machines and Apple doesn’t want to license it to them they can go buy copies from Apple directly, one at a time.
Whilst Apple may be required to allow anybody to buy a copy of Mac OS X, and that people have the freedom to install Mac OS X on any machine, they cannot be required to support any machine. Apple don’t have to provide support to non-standard (i.e. non-Apple) hardware configurations.
Where Apple could get in trouble here is if they intentionally break Mac OS X so it will not work on other manufacturer’s machines. I see no reason for them to do this, beyond marketing droids being stupid and anti-competitive.
Should Dell decide to buy retail copies of Mac OS X from Apple, the support problem would be theirs, not Apple’s.
Apple had two big problems when they licensed Mac OS previously. Firstly their machines were over-priced. Secondly they weren’t competitive – the fastest Macs came from their licensees.
“but Apple’s Mac OS X will rapidly overtake the POS Windows in worldw”
naive at best…. the MS mafia IT departments will never let it happen… it will put them out of business
So Psystar’s lawyers are ambulance chasers, otherwise known as personal injury lawyers, who normally defer their fees and receive only out-of-pocket expenses if they lose the case.
@rattiemouse:
You are a true idiot.