Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

Re: Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

Lejla — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:36:52 -0000

All I have to say is I am an owner of a Psystar Open Pro, it is always broken down and there is no support for it. There are some rude young people working there that think since I bought a cheap copy of a Mac, then I should get cheap to no service with it.

Re: Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

Randall Howard — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 08:04:33 -0000

Mathew,
Thanks for posting this. As MAC goes mainstream, I've been wondering this as well. Having recently bought a MacBook, I was struck by how much "price fixing" goes on. The price is always the same no matter where you go. I thought this was illegal independent of market share, but can only imagine that as MAC becomes a dominant player this will somehow get addressed either by competition or the regulators (or both).
Randall

Re: Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

Chris Edwards — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:41:54 -0000

"...buy a Dell Inspiron and run the Mac OS on it..."

That feels so wrong.

A Thinkpad maybe or one of the less cheesy Vaios (that hopefully doesn't fall apart).

Re: Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

ex Bebox hacker — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 12:16:05 -0000

"How come I can get a Macbook Pro and run Windows on it, but I can’t buy a Dell Inspiron and run the Mac OS on it? Doesn’t seem right somehow." I'm sure you know the answer: Steve Jobs.

Re: Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

michael_webster — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:47:13 -0000

Matthew, your position is the one currently accepted, in both Canada and the US.

The Whole Foods case strikes most US Anti-Trust lawyers as nutsy.

But I think that there is something to it: what is a market for a product without considering how the major player advertised for their consumers?

Re: Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

mathewi — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:38:58 -0000

Thanks, Michael -- I wasn't suggesting that we could use the Superior ruling to predict U.S. anti-trust decisions, just pointing out that the argument can go both ways.

Re: Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

michael_webster — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:28:30 -0000

Matthew, the FTC lost the first round in their battle and then had it reversed.

I don't believe that we can predict US Anti-Trust decisions from looking at the Competition Tribunal.

But it will be interesting to follow, certainly Apple has tried to carve out its own market, and in the market ties software and hardware together.

Re: Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

mathewi — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:01:10 -0000

Thanks, Michael. On the other side of the equation, a propane company
in Canada successfully argued that acquiring another propane company
wouldn't impair competition -- even though it would give the company a
huge share of the propane market -- because the propane business was
just a subset of the overall heating market.

Re: Psystar wants to force Apple to open up

michael_webster — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:09:38 -0000

You might want to follow the Whole Foods FTC action in which they are maintaining that the relevant market for Whole Foods is the small high end natural market