Mac clones? Really? I feel like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future.
On Monday, website Gizmodo released video of a working, though unauthorized, Mac OS X clone sold by a Florida company called Psystar. Call it a Mac in PC clothing.
I've been here before. Back in my PR days, a Taiwanese manufacturer called UMAX Computer was a client. Mac clones were part of its business. Until, that is, Steve Jobs returned as CEO of Apple
The problem, Jobs said at the time, was that the cloners were taking precious hardware revenue from Apple, rather than from PC makers such as Dell
Would a similar problem persist today? I think so. Apple's second-quarter results were driven largely by huge gains in hardware revenue. Mac market share, meanwhile, topped 6% in North America for the first time in years.
What's more, the iEmpire just paid $278 million for chip designer P.A. Semi and its PWRficient processor. Whether or not this signals the end of Apple's relationship with Intel
Psystar, if it succeeds at selling $399 Mac clones, could threaten all of that. Or, at the very least, the very profitable and recently refreshed iMac line.
A cheap Mac? Take me away, Psystar, I don't mind. But you better promise me that Apple's profits will be back in time. Steve is watching, after all.
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