PC maker looks to sell $399 Mac clone

The OpenMac would come in a big, decidedly non-Apple beige box with a 2.2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a 250GB hard drive, and (for an extra $155) Mac OS X pre-installed. But the Miami-based company that's hawking the machine had better brace itself for the wrath of Apple's legal department.

The Web site for Psystar, the company that’s selling the OpenMac, has been down for the count all morning—probably due to the crush in traffic after the story broke early Monday.

But according to Ars Technica, the OpenMac supposedly will run Mac OS X "Leopard" natively, thanks to a series of emulators and drivers that fool Apple’s OS into thinking it's running on Apple hardware.

Indeed, getting Mac OS X to run on various non-Apple gadgets is a favorite pastime of tech hobbyists and hackers. But Psystar’s attempt to sell the OpenMac commercially is sure to draw the attention of Apple legal, especially since (as Ars Technica points out) the Leopard license specifically forbids installing the OS on non-Apple hardware.

Still, the story harkens back to the tale of Power Computing, the company that made Apple-authorized Mac clones back in the '90s. Personally, I thought it was a great idea—why not give us consumers more (and cheaper) choices for buying Mac hardware?

But Steve Jobs clearly isn't a fan of the Mac cloning business; Apple snapped up Power Computing in 1997, after Jobs returned to Cupertino, and that was that.

So, what do you think? Would you be interested in cheaper Mac clones, even if they don't come in sleek aluminum cases?

PC maker looks to sell $399 Mac clone