Psystar countersues Apple

Macintosh clone company Psystar is attempting to fight the idea that it's preparing to cut and run with a quick buck earned from selling cheap knockoffs of Apple's popular computers. To wit: Faced with a lawsuit from the Cupertino monster, Psystar says it is prepared to fight and will countersue the company under a pair of Antitrust Acts, saying that Apple's restrictions and the tying of its OS to its own hardware are anticompetitive.

Specifically Psystar wants Apple's EULA invalidated and asks for monetary compensation, too.

When Apple first announced its lawsuit over a month ago, I guessed that Psystar was likely to pack up its things and scoot out of the country, taking a nice haul and lots of unfulfilled orders with it. But Psystar seems to have some fight in it. According to a report at Cnet, it's "business at usual" at Psystar until the courts say otherwise (though the company now calls its machines "OpenComputers" instead of "OpenMacs"). In fact, Psystar says it even plans to release something "like a notebook" in the near future. (That sounds, oddly, like a "notebook.") The company is still taking orders.

Who will prevail in this case? The line has to be on the side of Apple, which has the resources and dogged tenacity to crush a small competitor like Psystar, but antitrust accusations have caused serious problems for at least one notable tech company (eg. Microsoft), although Microsoft has a substantially greater market share and was pursued by the government directly for years before drawing any real judgments against it.

Curiously, Psystar is said to have a legal license agreement with Apple and also claims that it is not modifying Apple's software in any way when it sells computers loaded with the OS. Rather, Psystar claims it is simply modifying a PC to run MacOS, and not the other way around. Is that something Apple can legally have any say over? Seriously, I want to know the answer. Tell it to the judge, man!