Submitted by The news has been out for a few hours already, but we were waiting for some official documentation and sources until we would publish it: Psystar, the Macintosh “clone” maker, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Apparently, the small company has a debt of USD 259000. The filing was made on a voluntary basis, and according to Psystar the financial troubles arise from the economic downturn.
The petition was filed voluntary last week in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida. Also last week, Psystar filed an amended motion in the court case with Apple which provided more details about why the company is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. “Debtor’s vendors due to their own financial problems are not being able to supply all necessary items to allow Debtor to produce their product, thus, forcing Debtor to pay higher prices for parts in order to fulfill customer orders in a timely manner and to assure satisfaction with the product,” the amendment reads, “These factors seriously contribute to the Debtor not being able to turn a significant profit in each sale.”
Chapter 11 bankruptcy by no means signals the end of a company; in fact, Psystar states in that same amendment that it plans to emerge from Chapter 11 as a stronger company. “Debtor plans on emerging from this Chapter 11 with a strong and effective plan to make an increasingly higher profit and still provide the consumer with the product that they have grown to enjoy and trust. Debtor possesses valuable intellectual property which will be implemented in a well thought out and more profitable business plan,” they say.
All this will likely slow down the proceedings in the court case between Apple and Psystar, as the bankruptcy proceedings gain precedence over the court case. We’ll also finally hear the last word on whether or not there are super secret investors behind Psystar, as the bankruptcy court will hold a hearing June 5 in which Psystar’s creditors will be named, including any possible secret ones.
All litigation stops until it is out of chap 11.
Which, of course, will not happen.
What a shock! Another company sued out of existence by Apple. NOT!
Another? Which were the previous ones?
Back in the days of the Apple I, Apple II, Apple III, and Motorolla 68K Macintosh, Apple sued several companies out of existence for making clones. They use this same biusiness model today…closed hardware (or so they think), closed software, and sue the hell out of anyone who even thinks about creating clones or developing unlicensed hardware/software for their products. This model nearly put them out of business back in 1990’s so you’d think that maybe they would have learned a lesson, but unfortunately they haven’t.
Didn’t allowing clones almost put Apple out of business?
That’s what His Steveness wants you to believe. I call bullshit.
Yet another shameless clone maker bankrupt. Shocking news!
What valuable intellectual IP do they have?
The OS: Apple’s, with some of their own hacks.
Firmware: not theirs, either.
Hardware: with exception of having their firmware placed on it, are off the shelf parts.
If their own intellectual IP is of any real value, they’ll be able to sell/license it out to someone via the bankruptcy proceedings easily enough in order to pay bills. Then again, if it were so valuable, chances are someone would have already bought them out before now.
Upcoming article here will explain that most likely, no, no hacks involved.
Oh wow, another batch of speculative fiction. Groovy. Why don’t you instead get in touch with someone who owns a Psystar machine , or better yet someone working at Psystar, figure out how does their hackintosh OS works and report some factual information. They either have to hack Mac OS X to get it to work or they don’t – no middle ground. Because, you know, if we are to guesstimate what is “most likely” I’d go with Psystar drink puppies’ blood and kick babies in the face.
You can run a Linux bootloader (called boot123, 132, etc) that will load the UNMODIFIED OSX Discs. Therefore, OSX isn’t “hacked”. It’s a Vanilla kernel, install, and AFAIK, drivers. Worst case is you need to install a few drivers after you install it (not sure).
So what’s your definition of ‘hacked’ ?
Edited 2009-05-26 20:21 UTC
First, I’m not claiming either one to be true. I’m just saying that “most likely” doesn’t cut it. It’s one or the other.
Second, installing drivers is not worst case, it is *the* case. Since Psystar’s hardware is not an exact replica of Apple’s machines there has to be some degree of modification or the OS.
However, third, the extent or mechanism of that modification is something I don’t have any information about (but it seems neither do you or Thom). It can very well be a bunch of third party kernel extensions, which is certainly not a hack – in fact that’s *the* way you add hardware support to the OS. But it may just as well be kexts posing as Apple’s own, which is on the fence, or even modified versions of Apple’s kexts, which lies firmly beyond the fence.
At the end of the day, I don’t really see the importance of this, since it is neither the reason for the bankruptcy, nor the cause of the lawsuit, but if Thom fancies writing an article on the subject, I’d much rather see researched, factual information, than a pile of speculation.
“Second, installing drivers is not worst case, it is *the* case. Since Psystar’s hardware is not an exact replica of Apple’s machines there has to be some degree of modification or the OS.”
Thats not true. just as Intel’s chipset drivers for windows cover a borad spectrum, apple’s drivers are less specific than one might think and a suprising amount of configurations can be used “out of box” (ish). Apple doesn’t go to great lengths to modify the hardware they use, so its not that different from what you can find online, if you know what to look for.
or even modified versions of Apple’s kexts, which lies firmly beyond the fence
Not necessarily. In the US this will count as a permitted use under copyright law, which explicitly allows you to make changes in the cause of inter operability.
It will violate the EULA of course, but no more so than that act of installation on non-Apple hardware.
I just BUILT my own Mac, and the article will describe how. No hacking, using just a bog-standard, unaltered Mac OS X Leopard retail disc. It’s easy, and doesn’t break the DMCA. Updates apply flawlessly.
You’ll see.
Looking forward to it. Well done. I have thought about doing it, without having the slightest desire to run OSX, just for the intellectual challenge. But if you’ve done it, maybe reading your account will be enough, and it will be a lot cheaper!
I hope you’re being straight. I’m interested!
Sorry,
But no company has a tower and the mother board assembly like Apple.
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/mac_pro/
That thing looks ugly as sin. Actually the ugly stick didn’t just hit it .. the whole forest joined in on it.
The industrial look is so … blah and meh
That thing looks ugly as sin. Actually the ugly stick didn’t just hit it .. the whole forest joined in on it.
The industrial look is so … blah and meh
Gotta agree there. That thing was just plain ugly. But then again, maybe they’re not even trying to make it look cool? It looks quite practical and that’s probably what they meant. Though, I’ve seen cases which have looked better AND were more practical.
For example?
(Disregard the smirk in my question. I’m genuinely interested in this. I’ve found very few computer enclosures, outside of rack mounted ones, that have the same emphasis on utility (or the same level of stylishness, for that matter) as the one of Mac Pro’s case. And pretty much all of them were of other brand name workstations.)
“Level of stylishness” is a subjective quality.
However, I did a quick search and this was the first case company that I found: http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product04.php?cl_index=1&sc_in…
Those are only some of their cases. Note that all of these full towers have twice the number of HD slots of a Mac Pro.
Here are the features of just one of them: http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=211&cl_…
Looks pretty fancy to me, removable MB tray and all!
This one evidently has a “slide-out” MB tray: http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=143&cl_…
Here’s another one:
http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=212&cl_…
And another one: http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=260&cl_…
This is just one company and they appear to have dozens of cases. Most of them seem “stylish” to me.
I just ran across this interesting one that features sliding side doors and definitely has a “style”: http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2006/04/japanese_case_mod…
In regards to “utility,” it’s hard to beat this one for component access: http://www.highspeedpc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Catego…
Edited 2009-05-26 21:58 UTC
Ah but you see, when Apple make ugly but practical cases it’s a good thing. When PC makers make ugly but practical cases they lack style.
I cant help but think that these kind of people are the same kind of people who think that Coke is objectively “better” than Pepsi.
More like suggesting that everyone should drive a Ferrari, even when people protest that they can’t get their baby carriage in the trunk.
That thing looks ugly as sin. Actually the ugly stick didn’t just hit it .. the whole forest joined in on it.
Then again, there are some people who wouldn’t know good design if it hit them in the rear. (You can go back to your Pontiac Aztek now.)
OMG, I had forgotten about the Aztec and how ugly it was/is. Even the Volkswagon Thing was a prettier car than the Aztec. Thank goodness neither are produced anymore.
Yeah, but the internals are sexy as hell. Its clean its neat and and its easily accessible, not to mention mention heat and power efficient. Can’t really say that about any off the shelf tower out there regardless of how many bells and whistles they add to the outside of the case.
Besides, how good the Mac Pro looks is subjective. I can assure you that when the G5 first hit the streets, the case manufacturers were falling head over heels to try to copy the look. The same with most other Apple products. Good looking or not their look was a game changer.
I was always partial to the Sony Viaio water cooled towers myself they were the sexiest things I ever saw, but were a pain to get into the internals due to the form not meeting function, or at least practicality.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/images/article/inline/1900-main.jpg
I have always been fan of minimal clean design. Apple knows how to do clean and minimal designs, its what they are known for.
Well, it doesn’t take a MBA prodigy to figure that when you combine a niche, unsustainable business model with bringing litigation upon yourself by acting like an utter prick, you’ll ultimately end up bankrupt. The good news for Psystar is that since they’ll fold shop before their court date with Apple they may get off the hook. The bad news for all of Psystar’s customers is that they are in a no better situation than if they had bought any other brand computer (or if they had built one themselves) and had installed one of the hackintosh distributions one can find on most torrent trackers. And it probably would have cost less. At any rate, who’s the sucker now?
“when you combine a niche, unsustainable business model with bringing litigation upon yourself by acting” from “an utter prick, you’ll ultimately end up bankrupt”
– Fixed it for you.
(I couldn’t resist but then my issues with Apple are more about the company policies than the hardware/software products)
“voluntary basis” -term: deffenition = “Apple has tired of playing this out in the courts and the hitman that was sent (now standing above you as you lie in bed) has offered you an ultimatum.” *
* See also, “what is my life worth to me,” and “How to – Begging: So negotiations have broken down, now what?”
So,if they are doing that bad it seems that very few people are interested in non Apple HW/Products. True?
Not necessarily. Think about who has really heard of Psystar and who is paying attention… geeks and enthusiasts, most of whom could build a hackintosh themselves for even cheaper than Psystar’s prices. Further, any consumer with an ounce of sense knows not to purchase from a company that may not be around next month. The few geeks who did purchase from Psystar did it because they wanted a hackintosh pre-built and knew they would be able to maintain it themselves. The average consumer isn’t going to go to Psystar for anything, if they’ve even heard of them.
Remember, to most non-techies, if it’s not in their major electronic retail chain it doesn’t exist. The only people who go out searching for this kind of thing are enthusiasts.
Psystar was selling to a very niche market indeed, seeing as how most of those whom they were attempting to sell to had no need of their services in the first place.
But that’s exactly my point.That’s because I was referring to the average user. I (and you) don’t know who the exact target was for this system. Why not the Joe User? What’s wrong with that except creating a bigger market? And as it turned out, not many geeks purchased such a system as well. Numbers talking I guess.
They might have become very popular, had they advertised and/or sold their machines through mainstream retailers.
I suspect though, even without the crushing lawsuit, Psystar was doomed to a niche market and marginal profitability.
Pystar is too important to fail. Let’s give a bailout to it like we do anything else that moves.
Oh wait, they don’t have big political donations and unions propping their bankrupt company up so they won’t get a bailout.