What if you could buy a Mac, or most of a Mac, from a startup for $399 instead of the roughly $2,000 you have to fork out to buy the real thing? Discussions on the Web are hissing and spitting like a backyard grill about that issue. Tom Spring has the scoop at the PC World blog. He wrote, “Budget conscious Mac shoppers can save a bundle on a $399 mid-level Macintosh computer running OSX called an OpenMac sold by a Florida-based company called Psystar.” And with that statement the fun began. Call it ad hominem or just plain insults, but techies are very sensitive about their equipment, sort of like throwing rotten apples if you catch my drift.

One reader wrote he’d grab the cheaper system “in a heartbeat.” Another responded—this is verbatim—“Are you an idiot? The cheapest “similar computer, a Mac Pro, starts at $2000.Mac. Dumbass, look at the Mac mini.” That’s one of the gentler responses.

MacDaily News says Psystar, the Florida company with the reportedly cloned and budget-friendly Mac, pitches the system as “a configuration of PC hardware capable of running unmodified OS X Leopard kernels. If you purchase Leopard with your OpenMac, we will not only include the actual Leopard retail package with genuine installation disc, but we also include a Psystar restore disc for your OpenMac and we will preinstall Leopard for free so you can begin to use your computer right out of the box.” Sounds like a deal to me.

No one can really predict how this turns out. Does this impinge Apple’s end user agreement? Will Apple unleash teams of rabid trial lawyers on the upstart? Will businesses take advantage and risks for a cheaper system for the workplace? Will users who purchase the clone have problems over licensing issues?  Is there accuracy in the prediction of a reader who commented that Psystar will fail with “all the legal prowess of a drunk trying to talk his way out of a DUI”? Whatever happens, the latest move to clone the Mac brand, by a startup named Psystar,  will certainly collide with policy set by a giant named Apple. I predict lots of name-calling, legal briefs, blog posts and maybe monetary damages as well.

(Note: I found this YouTube video of a Mac ad done in the United Kingdom. Aside from the fact I love the accents, the video sticks faithfully to the storyline of the Mac brand.)

Technorati Tags: Beneath the Brand, Psystar, Mac, clone, technology, computers, tech blogs, Kay B. Day, Talent Zoo

Filed under: Branding, Emerging Tech, Industry News, Miscellaneous, Product Placement