[Macworld]

Post your comments for Judge dismisses Psystar antitrust lawsuit against Apple here

[lkrupp]

Oops! Can we start the Psystar deathwatch clock now? Can we? Can we?

[RobK]

HA HA HA, HO HO HO, and a couple of Trah Lah Lahs.

[Wondercow]

Hopefully this will muzzle all the fools who were insistent that Psystar was right, that Apple IS a monopoly. They are not; there is no overall MacOS market, only the overall desktop computer market.

[Photonerd]

Pwned. Disingenuous losers. Make your own product like the rest of the world.

[thenascarguy]

Whew. I was getting worried, should Pystar win, that Chevy would be sued for having a monopoly on the Corvette market and FOX would get sued for having a monopoly on the American Idol market and Scott Adams would get sued for having a monopoly on the Dilbert market.
Geez. Get real Psystar.

[mdawson]

Well, this is not over yet, but the judge has pretty much ruled as those of us that actually have a clue about what constitutes a market, let alone a monopoly and subsequently an anti-trust violation, as any rational, sane judge would. Psystar is nothing more than a leech firm serving the Wal-Mart crowd.

Not that there is anything wrong with saving money, but the Psystar supporters are typically of the ?I should not have to pay for anything? mentality or just outright selfish; that is, Apple does not make a system that suits their exact needs therefore some hack can come along and sell a product in Apple?s brand space. There is plenty of competition in the personal computer market; a company does not have to compete against its own brand. The latter is exactly what Psystar is attempting to force Apple into doing and you can best believe that companies like Dell are sitting on the sidelines hoping that a legal precedent is set that will allow them to leech off of Apple?s work also.

Judge Alsup?s ruling is a good start for Apple, but let us not forget that this is only a dismissal of Psystar?s delusional countersuit. Apple needs to win their suit against Psystar before we start celebrating.

[Terrin]

Macworld doesn't seem to be keeping up on this story very well. Apple removed itself from the mediation process. So, contrary to the story, the parties are not mediating anything. The court has set a pretrial schedule.

[jhorvatic]

I don't see Psystar coming up with anything that will get them out of this except to close there doors! There whole business was Illegal to begin with, then they had the nerve to hack XServe software and claim that they had the rights to that as well. I don't see how Apple can lose this case as they have the copyrights, the patents, and the R&D behind them. Psystar has roderick and hear say, and hacks. Not a good way to win a legal battle.
See ya Psystar!

[Philip Michaels]

Terrin said:

Macworld doesn't seem to be keeping up on this story very well. Apple removed itself from the mediation process. So, contrary to the story, the parties are not mediating anything. The court has set a pretrial schedule.

You mean like the pretrial schedule we already reported on in this story?

[Wondercow]

mdawson said:

>Judge Alsup?s ruling is a good start for Apple, but let us not forget that this is only a dismissal of Psystar?s delusional countersuit. Apple needs to win their suit against Psystar before we start celebrating.

Let's also not forget that a large portion (if not all) of their defence was based on this monopoly theory. I would expect Apple to move for summary judgement now that Psystar has been told that their defence is invalid.

[mdawson]

Not disputing you here, but I have long since learned not to count my chickens before they hatch. Microsoft should have been handed their ?s in 2001, but in the end their penalty (in the US) only served to provide more market penetration. Also, do not forget that Judge Alsup may not preside over the case due to a potential conflict of interest.

[context]

What constitutes a "monopoly" is a political-ideological decision. The FTC, for instance, convinced a court to reject the merger of Staples and Office Depot on the premise that the "merger would violate federal antitrust laws by substantially reducing competition in the retail sale of office supply superstores in various markets throughout the country where each firm directly competes against each other." (FTC press release) The FTC took the position that only those two companies and OfficeMax should be considered, despite the fact that Wal-Mart/Sam's Club was the largest office supply retailer, and there was diverse and healthy competition for sales of office supply products. Despite the fact that the combined sales of Staples and Office Depot were less than 10 percent of all office supply product sales, the FTC said they would have too much of the market because it chose to exclude all companies from its definition of "the market" which were not "office supply superstores." By blocking the merger of Staples and Office Depot the government gave a gift to Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, and independent retailers who were not "superstores" but who sold about 85 percent of all office supplies.

[ebonfyre]

Everybody is dismissing that the "Mac OS Market" is a separate entity from the personal computing field overall, but how many of you seriously consider anything else? For me, OSX is THE only operating system I want to use, and therefore Apple HAS a monopoly on the hardware I can choose from. When the first clones were available in the 90's I went right out and bought a Motorola clone because it had the specs I wanted at the price I thought was fair, and I expect many of you did something similar. Whether Psystar has a good product or caters to the "Walmart" crowd is irrelevant to me at this point, what I admire is that they are fighting for me to have a choice. Competition and innovation are good things and I hope that the judge sees that in the coming trial.