KEY POINTS:
Apple often gets criticised for not licensing its system to run on non-Apple machines. While this has helped Apple retain its exclusivity, it has also been a barrier to some markets, although it looks like Apple doesn't think these markets are worth entertaining, generally speaking, being mostly those PC cobblers and over-clockers who like to customise their machines and try all sorts of different systems on them.
This particular creed of PC users - many of whom are do-it-yourself geniuses - Apple has seemingly identified as a low profit and low loyalty sector of the market. Quite justifiably. Please do note that I am guessing, here. I have not read or heard that this is Apple's stance, but Apple has always preferred catering to a locked-in, high value clientele.
Bill Gates famously advised Apple to license its software for other platforms over two decades ago and was famously ignored - he went on to dominate the market himself by having Windows built to work on all sorts of boxes, from high-end to bargain-basement. But not Apple, leading to people to bang on endlessly at IT functions with the same lame comments for years: "Is Apple a hardware company or a software company?", they say, trying to look wise. "It has to decide."
Bollocks. Apple is both. It always has been.
Nowadays, some like to archly chime in with "It's a marketing company!" Yes, it's that too. It's all three. Sigh.
But Apple has actually experimented with clones, allowing non-Apple machines loaded with Apple OS to be marketed. That was back in the 1990s. It was a weird feeling that you could by a non-Apple machine that was both faster and cheaper than a 'real' Mac, loaded with the Mac OS. It was a very tempting proposition for struggling publishing companies and the like.
Power Computing was the first company selected by Apple, under CEO Michael Spindler, to be a licensed Apple OS vendor. The company was started out with financial backing of the European tech firm Olivetti, along with money put in by Power Computing's founder Stephen Kahng.
The first Mac-compatible PC shipped in May 1995. Power Computing used a direct, build-to-order sales model to shave costs. Unit cost dropped further once a certain level of volume manufacturing was achieved anyway, and Power Computing's success seemed to surprise everybody - within a year, it had shipped 100,000 machines.
(You can read more about the Power Computing clones on Wikipedia.)
The Power Computing towers used PowerPC chips, which had been introduced to Macs in 1994. The new 'PowerMac' Apple computers were highly sought after because of their speed, but Apple had grossly underestimated demand and couldn't fill its orders - by 1995, Apple had US$1 billion worth unfilled.
That and the competitive pricing certainly helped Power Computing to move so many of its clones; Power Computing towers were in standard PC cases and that may have been the only impediment. They were ugly.
But the clone Macs were terminated when Steve Jobs returned as 'interim' CEO of Apple in July 1997. Jobs immediately set about rationalising the plethora of Mac models that were confusing buyers. Having clones available at the same time certainly added to this confusion. In September, Apple bought Power Computing for US$100 million in Apple stock and terminated the Mac cloning business.
That was pretty much the end of the Mac clones except for this year, when a maverick company called Psystar took a gamble and launched a new Mac clone.
The problem for Apple is that an Intel-based Mac is pretty much 'just' a PC. It really doesn't take much effort to put together hardware to suit, then install OS X.
The big barrier for companies is litigation. It's illegal to install OS X on a non Apple machine, according to the pretty detailed Mac OS X end-user licensing agreement you agree to when you buy OS X. It really takes some gumption to call out Apple on something like this. Maybe it should be called 'Forrest Gumption' because, on the face of it, it's a pretty stupid thing to try, in my opinion. But Psystar was selling its clones from a starting price of US$555 ($1022), undercutting even the Mac Mini, Apple's cheapest computer.
Apple, of course, sued Psystar for breaking multiple copyright and software-licensing laws. Psystar counter-sued Apple, citing monopolies, restraint of trade and antitrust issues. Mediation was entered into, but last week things took a turn for the worse for Psystar: a judge threw out all six claims of its claims, labelling them 'internally contradictory'.
Meanwhile, many still think Apple should license its software. I consider this extremely unlikely. Apple makes strong margins on its hardware, not its software. The key to Apple's success is integration - everything 'just works' because the hardware and software are designed for each other.
Also, while licensing Mac OS would dilute the lucrative sales of Macs, it would also open the platform up moreo to hackers and coders and all those who feel excluded because they can't have a free or cut-price Apple to lunch on. As Seb Janacek says on Silicon.Com, "the hardware is what the company makes its money from, the operating system and the software is the why"
It would also mean Apple would have to contend a lot more with the legacy code issue that Microsoft has with every new version of Windows. Apple has this issue too; it's just a lot easier to deal with when the same firm also designed all the hardware OS X has had to run on.
So, no clones, sorry.
