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Mon, Mar 22, 2010 - 10:51 AM EDT  —  AAPL: 223.60 (+1.3501, +0.61%)  |  NASDAQ: 2384.38 (+9.97, +0.42%)

BusinessWeek’s Burrows: Psystar shouldn’t have messed with Apple
Wednesday, December 02, 2009 - 01:21 AM EDT

Hammacher Homepage 300x250"Whatever the outcome of Psystar's ongoing battle, even now the saga carries some important lessons for other would-be challengers to tech's status quo," Peter Burrows reports for BusinessWeek. "Don't pick a legal fight you can't win (put another way, don't mess with Apple). The onetime underdog is now one of the staunchest defenders of its intellectual property, and it has a $24 billion cash hoard to help press its case in court."

MacDailyNews Note: Make that over $34 billion, Pete. $10 billion difference still means something outside of Washington D.C.

Burrows continues, "Mac users want the whole enchilada. The world has changed immensely since Power Computing and the other cloners were trying to build their business. Back then, the Mac customer base was mostly companies and technically sophisticated consumers. Now, the company sells millions of Macs a year, to all manner of consumers. When they head out to buy a computer, they're not defining the Mac as an operating system. The Mac is a stylish machine that runs a well-designed operating system—and a machine that is backed up by support from a company with one of the world's strongest brands."

"Psystar's attorney, Kiwi Camara of Camara & Sibley in Houston, is hopeful the copyright case in California will be reversed on appeal (the partial settlement stipulates that Psystar won't have to pay those damages until all appeals have been exhausted). And Camara says Apple's decision to drop a spate of remaining claims against Psystar—on trademark infringement, unfair competition, and others—shows Apple wants to end this saga as well. 'This [partial settlement] is too good to be true,' he says. 'I don't know why they did it,'" Burrows reports. "A bigger unknown for Psystar, though, is why its founders decided to take on Apple in the first place."

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "James W." for the heads up.]

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Reader feedback page 1 of 1 pages:
Dec 02, 09 - 02:31 am Comment from: jake

"$10 billion difference still means something outside of Washington D.C."

Always with the political digs, MDN?

Dec 02, 09 - 02:31 am Comment from: iQuack

Dummies!

Dec 02, 09 - 02:39 am Comment from: Julian

Relax. It's his first time covering AAPL. $24 billion is so 2008!

Dec 02, 09 - 03:00 am Comment from: Martin

No,Burrows is right and MDN is wrong: Apple owns 34 billion $ of cash and ,now listen folks, equivalents.
This means that this equivalents could be turned into cash very easily, but they are not cash.

The cash part of these 34 billion is,tataaaaaa, 24 billion $!

Dec 02, 09 - 03:01 am Comment from: pwntbywombat

i'd like to know why my comment about why i was woken up at 1:30 in the morning by a push notification for this useless story was deleted...

Dec 02, 09 - 03:38 am Comment from: @jake

In case you haven't noticed, MDN is a right-wing tool who, like all of his teabagger friends, suddenly decided to care about fiscal responsibility on January 20, 2009.

Dec 02, 09 - 04:28 am Comment from: mike

"In case you haven't noticed, MDN is a right-wing tool who, like all of his teabagger friends, suddenly decided to care about fiscal responsibility on January 20, 2009."

A right wing Mac site? Methinks not.

Dec 02, 09 - 05:49 am Comment from: x

@jake

Another candy-ass whiner.

Nice take MDN! Maybe one of them will be read by that irresponsible, spendthrift, incompetent jackass Pelosi.

Dec 02, 09 - 05:52 am Comment from: x

@mike

So, candy-ass whiner, you can dish it out when Bush is prez but you can't take it when your bwoy is acting the fool. Payback is a bitch, ain't it?

Dec 02, 09 - 05:57 am Comment from: Moo

@jake,

In case reality isn't your forte (and it seems it isn't), saying something as typically Liberal (read "mindless") as "suddenly caring" about fiscal responsibility, after watching the Lib Dems nearly TRIPLE the deficit, shows just how vapid and intellectually bankrupt the bedwetting leftists have become.

(Gee, aren't you happy you tried playing the hate card? I can rub your nose in your own crap all day if you'd like, make my day!)

Dec 02, 09 - 06:36 am Comment from: Macguy

Trust me, the libbos will never face up to the fact that they are responsible for the fiscal crisis today... all that to get monkey boy into the white house.

Dec 02, 09 - 08:40 am Comment from: KenC

When people in finance refer to cash, they always mean cash and its equivalents. That's what equivalents means, equal.

Dec 02, 09 - 09:01 am Comment from: TowerTone

"$10 billion difference still means something outside of Washington D.C."

that could apply to D.C. for the last 45 years and is a sad reality, not politics, jake-ass.

Dec 02, 09 - 09:07 am Comment from: zek

Seems that for most sheeple here the world is easily divided into Obamanoids and right wingers. Fortunately for our children's future, this terminally stupid world view is dying.

Dec 02, 09 - 09:36 am Comment from: Mac-nugget

@zek
I am with you. A two party Democracy? One that prides it self in regime change of sovereign countries. Democracy only works when the people you like win. If not, you can always have a coup d'état.
What this country needs is a Labor Party, one that does not have corporate interest at the center of their campaign funding. Then we would see real reform.

That said, it's good to see Psystar crushed as there disingenuous business model gets exposed. Who would invest with them now, drug traffickers?

Dec 02, 09 - 09:46 am Comment from: Previous

Somebody let me know when this site starts talking about Apple and not this political crap again. I can find this endless bullshit everywhere else.

Dec 02, 09 - 09:49 am Comment from: JustMe

@jake,

MDN is actually Rush Limbaugh's technical arm... which explains the continual ineptitude in typos and generally pompousity of MDN takes. I only visit here because I like 30,000 ads per page (and my IT department does not block MDN - they only block sites that people would visit often that are not business related, and MDN is definitely not business related and certainly not a threat to anyone - annoying, yes. threat, hardly.)

Dec 02, 09 - 09:59 am Comment from: Flackman

@MacGuy Monkey Boy? Good one, bigot boy.

Dec 02, 09 - 10:09 am Comment from: Think

@Flackman

Ballmer is referred to as Monkey Boy, is that bigotry?

Dec 02, 09 - 10:26 am Comment from: Jake Off

@Jake smells like a Liberal pussy!

Dec 02, 09 - 11:06 am Comment from: Flackman

@Think. No. Try to figure out why.

Dec 02, 09 - 11:22 am Comment from: Tactics

Flackman sees Obama as fresh out of the trees of Africa, thus he think money boy is race related. Non bigots find it difficult to see an implied insult, Real bigots (like Flackman) find insult in almost anything.

Dec 02, 09 - 11:27 am Comment from: Tactics

by the way Macguy, great point!

As the Dollar is destroyed, and America sinks, those in Washinton will only claim that more money (to them) is the only answer.

Dec 02, 09 - 11:36 am Comment from: Can't Wait for 2010 Midterms

US zombies slowly awaken to the reality of being led by an empty suit

The number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell by nearly two percentage points in November. Added to declines earlier in the year, the number of Democrats in the nation has fallen by five percentage points during 2009. In November, 36.0% of American adults said they were Democrats."

The number of Republicans inched up by just over a point in November to 33.1%. The number of adults not affiliated with either party grew half a point last month to 30.8%.

Keep in mind that figures reported in this article are for all adults, not likely voters. Republicans are a bit more likely to participate in elections than Democrats.


http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/partisan_trends

71% angry at US federal government, up five points since September'

Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

http://bit.ly/8xvRsN

Republicans lead by seven points on U.S. generic ballot

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent

http://bit.ly/4sfo9l

Voters more confident in Republicans than in Democrats on all of U.S. key electoral issues

New Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveying finds Republicans maintaining a double-digit lead on the #1 issue, the issue of the economy – 48% to 36%.

http://bit.ly/PsXjj

MDN MW: "hope." ROTFLMFAO!

Dec 02, 09 - 11:40 am Comment from: farmertomato

Lotta creepy Nazis here.

Dec 02, 09 - 12:00 pm Comment from: eri

Wow. Mention anything Washington DC and all the progressives think it's Obama bashing. Pathetic! Throw them ALL out!

Dec 02, 09 - 12:19 pm Comment from: Ringgo

If all these comments are representative of Apple users, then I was sadly mistaken in thinking of them as more intelligent and discriminating than the rest of the mindless nosebleed techies

Dec 02, 09 - 12:37 pm Comment from: John

"A bigger unknown for Psystar, though, is why its founders decided to take on Apple in the first place."

TRY STUPIDITY!!!!

Dec 02, 09 - 12:41 pm Comment from: Gabriel

@ Ringgo - It's pretty much luck of the draw here. Some MDN articles spawn comments or debates which are very insightful (either for or against Apple) and actually relevant to the main article. Others, like this one, devolve into idiotic zealotry and off-topic political rants, often by people who seem to have little interest in Apple.

MDN states that they will delete off-topic comments, but just like Apple's App Store approval process, they are extremely inconsistent in how they actually enforce those rules.

Dec 02, 09 - 12:45 pm Comment from: Gabriel

"A bigger unknown for Psystar, though, is why its founders decided to take on Apple in the first place."

Apparently, it was part of their business plan. From Groklaw:

[...] that they wanted to get sued, so others would be afraid to do what Psystar was doing until after the trial, and meanwhile the publicity would give Psystar brand recognition and a head start. Indeed the Summary page at the end states it baldly: "Thanks to ongoing litigation and current market conditions Psystar has a unique opportunity." Unique is too small a word for this, I think. Litigation as business plan. So now we know why it seemed to want to get sued. They thought it was a market opportunity and a way to get VC money.

Dec 02, 09 - 12:50 pm Comment from: Gabriel

Also, anyone who takes what Psystar (or their attorney) says at face value is begging to look like a fool - yes, Peter Burrows, I'm looking at you.

Groklaw has another more recent article, which takes a far more skeptical view of Psystar's latest spin on everything.

Dec 02, 09 - 12:51 pm Comment from: jake

I was just pointing out that MDN is the biggest troll on their own site. And you all proved my point.

Kudos to the clever 'Jake Off' and 2nd place to TowerTone's 'jake-ass.' lol

Dec 02, 09 - 03:16 pm Comment from: Mike (with a capital M)

@mike: yes, MDN takes a conservatively-biased view of most political topics. Poster "@jake" is absolutely correct.

To the topic of discussion: most of us would be rooting for the small-guy underdogs if they had a legal leg to stand on. However, Psystar doesn't, and they deserve no quarter for attempting to profit from Apple IP.

Dec 02, 09 - 06:55 pm Comment from: liopapa

You're all tools. Right wing, left wing... what's the difference? The only thing these terms represent is which pocket the politicians have their hand in. You've all been divided and conquered; arguing about which side is correct or at fault, while they cash in on your stupid human fallacy. So typical...

Dec 02, 09 - 07:11 pm Comment from: SERENITY NOW!

The comments here are a collective posterchild for why political parties should be outlawed.

Dec 03, 09 - 01:12 pm Comment from: Gabriel

Disheartening that the five comments posted after my last comments above, have nothing to do with either the article or the points I raised which are actually relevant to the article.

It does, however, seem to confirm the correlation between strong political affiliations and lack of critical thinking skills. Difficult to perceive the world accurately when you're deliberately ignoring one side of every debate.

And when did our political parties become more loyal to themselves than to the country they're supposed to be serving? Are we seeing this shift due to the more selfish post-Boomer generations taking control?

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