Defiant Psystar Vows To Keep Battling Apple

Mac clone maker Psystar isn't letting minor issues like its looming bankruptcy and pending copyright infringement case get in the way of its product marketing efforts.

In an e-mail newsletter distributed Wednesday, the embattled Doral, Fla.-based system builder introduced a new Mac clone that runs OS X and suggested that it's planning to continue operating despite its legal and financial entanglements.

"As you all may already be aware, in late May Psystar filed for Chapter 11 protection. Although this was critical to our continued daily operations, we now are ready to emerge and again battle Goliath," Psystar said in the e-mail.

Psystar's new $1,499.99 Open(7) computer brings together OS X and Intel Nehalem Xeon technology and offers 40 percent more processing speed and up to 24 GB of memory, making it "our fastest and most quiet computing configuration available," the company said in the e-mail.

Psystar filed for bankruptcy on May 21, a move that caused the court to halt proceedings to review the case. Apple subsequently petitioned -- and managed to convince -- the court to put the case back in motion, which essentially forced Psystar to mount a legal defense.

However, that extra financial burden apparently hasn't shaken Psystar's resolve. In the e-mail, Psystar said it will offer more information on the future of its business "in the coming days" and claimed that its Chapter 11 proceedings are reaching an end.

"When life gives you apples, make applesauce," Psystar quipped in the e-mail.

The e-mail is the latest twist in a bizarre saga that began last July when Apple filed a copyright infringement suit against Psystar for selling a $399 Mac clone with OS X preinstalled.

Psystar immediately filed a countersuit accusing Apple of antitrust violations, which was summarily dismissed in November by a federal judge in California. But that didn't faze Psystar, and in the ensuing months the company tried a variety of different tactics in an attempt to convince the court to render Apple's longstanding stranglehold on Mac OS hardware null and void.

Psystar also accused Apple of illegally manipulating OS X so that it wouldn't boot correctly on non-Apple hardware, and later claimed that Apple never actually obtained a copyright for OS X, and therefore couldn't sue Psystar for copyright infringement.

The brazenness of this claim has led to speculation that Psystar has backing from Apple's competitors, and the fact that Psystar is still touting new products lends support to that theory.

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