By Branko Miletic
Apple is suing a company making Mac clones, according to a report from the New Zealand Herald.
US company Psystar has been selling Macs bundled with Apple's OS X operating system for the past 6 months and Apple is accusing Psystar of copyright, license and trademark infringements.
Psystar's low-cost 'clones' immediately raised red flags in the vigilant Mac blogosphere, with many wondering just how long it would take Apple to take action against the company, according to the report.
The NZ Herald notes that Psystar's ‘Open Computer' ships with a 2.2 GHz Intel Core2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. It can also be upgraded with nVidia's GeForce 8600 video card or a three-port FireWire card.
And at just US$399, it is by far cheaper than any Apple product with comparable performance- even second-hand ones.
Many years ago, Apple allowed clone versions of its machines to be manufactured, with several made using licensed Apple ROMs by Power Computing, UMAX and Motorola, amongst others, according to the report.
However, this strategy didn't have the same universal success that IBM clones did and Apple CEO Steve Jobs pulled the pin on clone licenses when he returned to the company in 1997.
