Apple Ups the Ante in Psystar Battle

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Apple is firing back against allegations made by Psystar that the company has a monopoly and has asked the courts to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice (so that it cannot be brought against them again).

The document says: "Ignoring fundamental principles of antitrust law, and the realities of the marketplace, Psystar contends that Apple has unlawfully monopolized an alleged market that consists of only one product, the Macintosh computer." Apple rejects the claim that Mac products represent a market in legal terms - instead Macs compete with PCs from various different manufacturers, and therefore cannot be considered a monopoly.
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that could come back to bite them
if the Judge is smart he's going to say that OS X would need to run on ALL PC hardware for it not be monopoly
 
Hmm. Sounds like Apple want to decide what the law means without regard to any logic. Apple only like to allow hardware its certifies into its systems and only legally allows its OS to run on its own certified hardware. Despite using PC hardware, Apple's ads and the statements of its head have made it clear that they believe they are a market of one and that PCs have no place competing with them.
 
As much as I'd like to run OSX on homebuilt hardware, PyStar has no case. A company has a natural monopoly over products it creates, and Mac alone is not a market. This doesn't fall within anti-trust laws. You can't force McDonald's to license out it's burger recipes, because you want to use McDonald's meat in your hambugrers.
 
Derangel said:
Hmm. Sounds like Apple want to decide what the law means without regard to any logic. Apple only like to allow hardware its certifies into its systems and only legally allows its OS to run on its own certified hardware. Despite using PC hardware, Apple's ads and the statements of its head have made it clear that they believe they are a market of one and that PCs have no place competing with them.
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Only they're competing with PC's directly in their "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads. And 99+% of the guts in a Mac is PC standard components.
 
bonsai said:
As much as I'd like to run OSX on homebuilt hardware, PyStar has no case. A company has a natural monopoly over products it creates, and Mac alone is not a market. This doesn't fall within anti-trust laws. You can't force McDonald's to license out it's burger recipes, because you want to use McDonald's meat in your hambugrers.
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But McDonalds isn't producing its own burgers. Its purchasing Burger King burgers and rewrapping them. And then preventing anyone from wrapping Burger King burgers in the same fashion.
 
Chombo said:
But McDonalds isn't producing its own burgers. Its purchasing Burger King burgers and rewrapping them. And then preventing anyone from wrapping Burger King burgers in the same fashion.
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that would be changing an existing product, but not enough to stop it from competing with the existing products, which is exactly what every PC company does.
 
In other news, dodge says that it doesn't have a monopoly on the caravan, it directly competes with the Porsche 911's and Peterbuilt semi tractors.
 
sfc said:
In other news, dodge says that it doesn't have a monopoly on the caravan, it directly competes with the Porsche 911's and Peterbuilt semi tractors.
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Dodge Caravans compete with other minivans. Macs compete with Dells.
Macs are PC's. In the end really, it is just an OS

As long as the software installed was purchased, Mac might have some troubles with this one. EULAs have a sketchy record of holding up in court.
 
Shouldn't it be about tying, and not monopolistic practices? Apple doesn't have a monopoly, but they are tying the use of their OS to their computers when it can easily be made to run on other computers.
 
BladeVenom said:
Shouldn't it be about tying, and not monopolistic practices? Apple doesn't have a monopoly, but they are tying the use of their OS to their computers when it can easily be made to run on other computers.
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True, but the same could be said of a console. You may be able to run another OS on the PS3 or 360, (like Xp on Mactels), but if you were to try to install the OS 360's or PS3's OS on another console or pc and then sell it, I have no doubt Sony and MS would have lawyers on your ass the instant they caught wind of it.

I don't really know what to make of the suit, let Apple keep OS X only on Macs, or let Psystar have OS X. I can't say which is correct legally.
It is all most likely a moot point anyway. Psystar does not have the money to fight this for any amount of time.
I expect we will see a lot of legal wrangling over the next few months and then Psystar will run out of money and close it's doors.
 
techrat said:
Only they're competing with PC's directly in their "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads. And 99+% of the guts in a Mac is PC standard components.
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Yeah, but to me it always seems like Apple has this "Holier Than Thou" stance and doesn't even like to admit they're competing with MS because that requires them to admit they're losing and have no chance in hell of ever winning.
 
GORANKAR said:
True, but the same could be said of a console. You may be able to run another OS on the PS3 or 360, (like Xp on Mactels), but if you were to try to install the OS 360's or PS3's OS on another console or pc and then sell it, I have no doubt Sony and MS would have lawyers on your ass the instant they caught wind of it.
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^^^

This is pretty much what it comes down to. If Apple was in the business of selling operating systems to run on other computers and squeezed out other OSes through coercion against PC manufacturers in the process (which is what Microsoft did in the 90s), then yes, it would be anti-competitive exploitation of a monopoly position. Fact of the matter is that they aren't doing that, nor are they punishing stores like Best Buy, Frys, etc etc etc for carrying Dells, HPs, Toshibas, whatever.

Psystar has no case. They should have done the smart thing and just sold PCs that are "ready to install" for a copy of OS X that the customer can just buy from the store. Stupid stupid stupid.
 
GORANKAR said:
Dodge Caravans compete with other minivans. Macs compete with Dells.
Macs are PC's. In the end really, it is just an OS

As long as the software installed was purchased, Mac might have some troubles with this one. EULAs have a sketchy record of holding up in court.
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Oh but there are no other mini-vans in this scenario. And Dodge will sue you if you attempt to make a minivan.

After all, nobody else needs to make a minivan, porsche's and peterbuilt's already compete just fine with mini-vans.
 
apple is on thin ice now . before apple switched hardware they could say they had a proprietary system that could be enforced by copyright trade secrets and such. but now they have the same hardware as off the shelf computers which makes them no different than generic white box pc's.

therefore there should not be anything that can prevent a company from selling apple compatible computers .

the only leg apple has to stand on is the software lic. because apple should not be held accountable if the software is used in ways they did not intend.
it could be argued that their software being sold on unsupported hardware harms the company.

but there is no way that should be able to prevent clone hardware from being built and sold.they should not be able to shut a company down for selling computers that can run osx.

personally i would love to see the mac clone market bloom because this would put a thorn into apple side and they would end up shooting themselves in the foot as apple can not stand to loose control of their brand.
and they would probably go back to proprietary hardware. which is where apple belongs .
 
BladeVenom said:
Shouldn't it be about tying, and not monopolistic practices? Apple doesn't have a monopoly, but they are tying the use of their OS to their computers when it can easily be made to run on other computers.
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This is the secret sauce to the Mac OS. By controlling exactly what hardware the OS is used on they can focus on the legendary stability that "Just Works".

If they were ever forced to open up and make the Mac OS work on as much hardware as Windows does their amazing claims of stability would go right out the window and their entire business model would crash and burn.
 
sfc said:
Oh but there are no other mini-vans in this scenario. And Dodge will sue you if you attempt to make a minivan.

After all, nobody else needs to make a minivan, porsche's and peterbuilt's already compete just fine with mini-vans.
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But there are other minivans in this scenario. They just look different, and have different engines. We call them Dells or HPs or E-Machines, or etc. Macs are just PCs with less choice in hardware options, and a proprietary OS. Nothing more, or less.
 
I don't know........Apple users, and PC users are IMO two separate things along with the computers. The two don't usually get together. I'm thinking this is like an owner of a car against someone who takes the train - both are modes of transportation, but are also completely different....and there is only one train company to choose from.
 
If Dell started making a proprietary OS and only allowed it to be used on properly licensed hardware, would anyone care?


Yeah... didn't think so.
 
bonsai said:
If Dell started making a proprietary OS and only allowed it to be used on properly licensed hardware, would anyone care?


Yeah... didn't think so.
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If it was as good as OSX I probably would. Of course then I'd probably be more willing to buy it as I don't dislike Dell, can't say the same about Apple.
 
Monkey34 said:
I don't know........Apple users, and PC users are IMO two separate things along with the computers. The two don't usually get together. I'm thinking this is like an owner of a car against someone who takes the train - both are modes of transportation, but are also completely different....and there is only one train company to choose from.
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Speaking as someone who knows lots of people who own and use both (and my sig obviously points to the same for myself), um, no...
 
bonsai said:
If Dell started making a proprietary OS and only allowed it to be used on properly licensed hardware, would anyone care?


Yeah... didn't think so.
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Shh, exposing ridiculous fanboy/hateboy logic doesn't have a place here! :rolleyes:
 
So what this really comes down to is if they can shut down a company for breaking the EULA on their software.

The truth of the matter is their computer business is a cash cow that survives on false image. My guess is that they aren't as worried about the sales competition as they are about their image. If their product is no longer "special" then special short bus people won't shell out the extra cash for them, especially not when their slightly less special friends who bought the cheaper version rub it in their faces that it is exactly the same except for the case.
 
Serpico said:
Speaking as someone who knows lots of people who own and use both (and my sig obviously points to the same for myself), um, no...
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And I'm speaking as someone who knows lots of people who use only one or the other (business use also) - and are rock solid operators of PC or Apple exclusively - who wouldn't think of switching or co-mingling.

Looks like its relative.....and so a win for Apple.
 
I would not take an an Apple product if you gave it to me (and I own two Apple computers for a point of reference)

Well I might and then promptly Egay it to some fanboy.
 
bonsai said:
If Dell started making a proprietary OS and only allowed it to be used on properly licensed hardware, would anyone care?


Yeah... didn't think so.
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What if Microsoft started selling hardware and shutting out anyone who wanted to use Windows? Would anyone care? Everyone would be up in arms if Microsoft started doing business like Apple.
 
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