Psystar President Insists That He’s Not Robbing You
After the blogosphere did nothing short of tear Psystar apart limb from limb, rottweiler style, Forbes managed to wrangle an interview with the man behind the [alleged] myth. Psystar, for those recovering from a coma, might be is a hardware vendor out of Doral Florida. It claims to be offering two models of "Open Computers" - well equipped, cheap and available preloaded with Apple’s Leopard OS. In fact, a well-specced Leopard OS-equipped Open Computer can be had for as little as $555. Thanks to some sketchy details, no Apple consent and an eager army of citizen journalists, Psystar was almost immediately torn apart. Brian Caulfield of Forbes.com managed to to score a short phone interview with Psystar Founder and President Rudy Pedraza and while Caulfield still isn’t entirely convinced, Pedraza insists that his company is the real deal. Pedraza states, "It’s not that we can’t provide the product or [that] Apple can stop us from providing the product. The truth is, we can’t process your credit card." This in response to the fact that Psystar’s payment gateway disappeared late last week as news of fraudulent dealings swarmed around the internet. Still Psystar managed to process a large number of orders before the payment gateway fell off and they supposedly just moved into a new larger facility (the somewhat-sketchy explanation for several address changes on the Psystar website last week). The proof is in the putting.The following blurb is up on the Psystar site, but only if you hit psystar.com and not www.psystar.com:
It is our pleasure to inform you that our store is up and running thanks to our new high volume payment processor. To all, we challenge you, let’s see if we can max this one out. Regarding shipping, orders placed the week of April 7th are currently being shipped. We will be shipping units out of our new facility starting Monday, April 21st, including those orders placed the week of April 14th. Orders are being shipped in the order that they were received, don’t worry, you’ll get yours soon. Upon shipment an email notification including tracking information will be sent to you, no need to ask.
If you’re one of the brave souls willing to fork over some cash to Psystar, definitely hit us up with some details if your box is received.
putting or pudding?
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“fork over some cash”? If your credit card issuer is anything worthwhile, you can execute a chargeback if you don’t legitimately receive the product you ordered.
Then again, you could save yourself the aggravation by not falling for such an obvious publicity whoring scam.
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I think it is robbery if you charge somebody for a product when you know the legality of your actions is a t least questionable.
People think Apple is a software company. It is not. It is a hardware company that uses software to sell hardware. Taking Apple’s software to sell it’s own hardware is theft plain and simple.
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Sorry Terrin. The moment Apple started selling stand alone copies of its OS is the moment they stopped being one or the other. Simply put they are a computer technology company, they have both hardware AND software products.
While the validity of this company is in question, in some part Apple’s position in the market comes into question. Yes, from the hardware perspective they don’t have a monopoly, as they don’t have a big market share. However, from the software side, if you want OSX you have to buy Apple hardware.
Just think, if it were Microsoft, would people be all jolly about it?
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