Beige Box Apple Clone?

steve.m writes "Finally it looks like I'll be able to get a cheap box to run MacOSX on, but not from Apple! John Fraser is (sort of) getting into the clone business 5 years after Apple shut down their 3 year long 'experiment' in licensing the hardware. Based on off the shelf apple components in a custom pizza box style case with no bolted on display, a barebones 'iBox' will be around 300 USD and require a processor, disk and memory (and the OS). Complete systems (again, without the OS) should start at around 650 USD."

Comments

Re:What will you run on it?

[JabberWokky]

Had you read the article, he's using Apple motherboards - bought from Apple. You know - "Apple Hardware".

--
Evan

Misleading title

[binaryDigit]

This is not really a Mac "clone". It's simply using used Mac parts and repackaging them. It's not like the PC market where you can build a NEW and current pc. Hardly a beige box like clone. People have been doing this for years, I have a repackaged Mac SE (it's in a rack mount case) from way back when.

Re:Apple's business model

[Millennium]

I don't believe there is any money to be made from hardware sales. The profit margin is too small.
Apple's margins on its machines averaged 28% across all lines last quarter. Highest margins in the industry by an absurd degree. They seem to be doing fairly well with that.

Re:Lost sales and/or lower profits for Apple

[Krow10]

JabberWocky wrote:

Had you read the article, he's using Apple motherboards - bought from Apple. You know - "Apple Hardware".

To which some AC Responded:

Had you read the article, you'd know he is using motherboards Apple sells for repair and spare part purposes. Manufacturers supply boards like that with much lower than retail markup because they're intended to serve its existing user base. ...

Technically correct. This has nothing to do with the point that JabberWocky was addressing; namely, this statement by (perhaps some other) AC:

Apparently nobody is aware that Mac OS X CAN'T BE RUN (legally) on non-Apple hardware?

See, since this is Apple hardware, running software that has a "you can't run this on non-Apple hardware" clause in it's license does not violate that clause of the license.

-C