Guest post by Whenever there is a new company popping up, offering to install OSX on “Hackintoshes”, everyone questions: Is this company for real? Do they think they can really take on Apple’s Legal Team? What are their motivations? They’re probably just in it for a quick buck or looking to be bought out once they achieve minor success. Here, I outline what I learned about Quo Computer on July 10th, 2009 and some of the things people can expect.
So yes, Quo Computer is very real. Having seen the announcement of its storefront opening on OSNews.com, I was immediately intrigued when I noticed that its location was in an area down the street from where I grew up. I was even more intrigued when I noticed in Google Maps that the address was next to my 2nd favorite hamburger joint in Alhambra, CA (that being Tops Jr. with my favorite being Rick’s Burger which is also located on Main Street).
The Quo address was to the old hobby store in Alhambra that had gone out of business some time in the mid-90’s when the wave of computer and console games took over the mindset of teens in the area who used to build model aircraft, cars, and the like. My dad used to buy his model glue there when he was a kid for his small collection of WWII aircraft and I remember accompanying my uncle in the mid-80’s when he needed supplies to build his model lowrider show car to go with his real “Just for Looks” club import lowrider.
Fastforward to the Present
These days, this part of West Alhambra is starting to see revitalization. Quo computers, in an indirect way, aims to be a part of that. As I walked towards the store, that wasn’t very apparent. The outside shows the wear and tear of decades of SoCal sun and earthquakes in what is certainly one of the oldest buildings in Alhambra. However, once inside, you notice a familiar combination of computers and displays that you’d find in the dozens of computer repair & custom build shops in the San Gabriel Valley that Alhambra is a part of. You also notice the sparseness of a new business: a few boxes of newly UPS received parts, another box on its way out, a few machines being repaired, a few new custom builds, and a little decoration.
In essence, a completely typical scene at any mom and pop computer shop. Looking deeper, talking to the shopkeeper, you quickly start to see that there is something quite different about this shop; something special.
A New Vision to shake up the Status Quo
Once you start talking to the shop keeper Rashantha De Silva, almost instantly, you’re blown away by his genuine, heartfelt, intelligent nature. He’s a long time Mac user, former Mac IT consultant and he’s building on his deep network to procure the hardware he needs from vendors in the East. Everything from CPUs, to RAM, to boards, to graphics chips, and even CPU cases.
Rashantha minces no words with what he is doing: he’s looking to be the “Pimp My Ride”, “West Coast Customs”, “Orange County Choppers” of computers. Building ultra-custom computers for anybody who wants them. And that includes everything from installing Mac OSX, dual booting Windows XP/Vista/7 and OSX, or even triple booting OSX, Windows and Linux. He mentioned to me he has built render farms for the movie industry using his machines. He also mentioned that he’s playing with the idea of building BeOS/Haiku boxes.
But like all the good customizers, Rashatha has a few stock tricks up his sleeve: namely, the LifeQ, ProQ, and MaxQ which run Linux and Windows quite well in addition to Apple’s Mac OSX that he has garnered some fame for. Rashantha is also planning on expanding his line of LifeQ, ProQ, and MaxQ to meet and exceed Apple’s line. The silver box on table next to the LCD TV (in the picture above) is an in-development Quo media computer. It’s this kind of forward thinking that makes me feel like he’ll be able to succeed.
Specialness of the Hardware
I hate to disappoint, but Quo isn’t having their vendors build them custom boards (yet). So the boards in the LifeQ, ProQ, and MaxQ are tried and true Hackintosh boards with some slight modifications that Rashantha feels make them more Apple-like when using them. The only other thing worth mentioning is that the CPUs are overclocked to safe air-cooled ranges and the LifeQ, ProQ, and MaxQ all have different processors. His cases are simple but stylish and customized with his company’s art work. However, he did show me pictures of the configuration that he’s planning next, and the case was sharp looking.
How does Quo do OSX?
As legally as possible. Rashantha only installs OSX at the request and with the funds of his customers and even makes trips to the Apple Store in nearby Pasadena to purchase the retail copies. Customers are given the receipts, along with their copy of OSX. Updates should all work as they are supposed to but he cautions his customers to wait until he gets a chance to verify that there are no compatibility issues. In fact, while there, I witnessed a LifeQ being outfitted with Leopard, LogicStudio, and FinalCut, all removed from their shrink wrap.
Apple Quo Care
Another great thing about Quo (and Rashantha) is how much they care for their customers. Rashantha told me that he just sent out a hard drive to a customer who was having issues initializing a second hard drive in the Windows 7 rig he built for them. He did this even before he received the customer’s original hard drive and the drive they would receive would be initialized and ready to plug-in. Then, while we were talking, he stopped to take a call and spent 20 minutes walking through a customer over the phone who bought an OS-less machine and then decided to dual boot it with WIndows 7 and OSX. They were having troubles with the Windows 7 part of it. Rashantha feels this kind of commitment to customers is something that Apple, Dell, Microsoft and all the big players in the industry can’t compete with and he hopes this gives his company an edge.
Looking Forward
I’m expecting Quo to be around for a while. I’m also expecting Quo to do quite well. They seem to have a steady flow of customers and they’re continually looking to expand. I was given a sneak peak at their future line and I was impressed. Their current line is just as impressive however, with LifeQ benching better than iMacs and their ProQ and MaxQ comparing well with the Mac Pro. I can’t believe how great of a guy Rashantha is and I feel like everyone should possess as good a heart as him. He’s got some tremendous support, he’s building the relationships to maintain a successful hardware line, and he’s got great intentions that he’s looking to act on. But he should, he’s looking to revolutionize what people expect from their computers and their computer vendors; he’s looking to change the Status Quo.
If he’s planning on building BeOS boxes, I think he’s definitely headed down the wrong path… but Haiku boxes is interesting for sure
Well, if he happens to read this comment, and will be in San Jose for OSCON or SF for OpenSource World, he should stop by our Haiku booth and chat with us. I’d love to talk to him about the possibility of building Haiku-based machines at his store.
http://www.haiku-os.org/blog/koki/2009-07-20/haiku_coming_oscon_200…
I’d suggest sending him an email. He’s a really great guy and will probably answer your email in a few minutes.
I actually did email [email protected] earlier
The article starts a nod to the legal ambiguity surrounding the whole pre install of Macs on non Apple hardware, but it doesn’t really answer it.
Does Quo have a lawyer on retainer?
Is there entire business model based on the assumption that Apple will lose its battle in court with psystar?
How much longer before the owner/operator is banned from the apple store?
You’ll notice the quocomputer website is very careful about their wording.
You’ll note that they claim to be Apple enthusiasts, and that their computer will run “any OS” – but they’re targeting Windows users, and that their machines will lead to an easier switch to Mac…
What they’re implying, is that their machines are capable of running OS X, but they’re not outright saying it…
I’m not sure if that will hold off Apple’s lawyers, but it’s less in-your-face than Psystar. Also, this article indicates that the owner provides “installation support services” which may include installing whatever OS multi-boot configuration the customer requests. This indicates the customer has chosen the hardware, and the OS platform, rather than buying something pre-installed. It seems the store is performing the service of installing said software.
I’m sure that if there’s ever a legal issue, they will have to revert back to “we only install OSes we can legally install” – but that won’t stop their customers from doing the multi-boot installation themselves anyway, possibly with phone-support to walk them through the process
Edited 2009-07-20 23:11 UTC
Interesting. I think it would be a lot safer for them to not do the install. Telling someone else to do something illegal ( if the pystar case determines that it is illegal), doesn’t absolve the person of all guilt.
Maybe not. But I think Quo operates under the principle that they’re customizing the computer to the customer’s specs. It seems to me to be a different tactic than what Psystar has used so far.
Definitely, it is not illegal to install a legally purchased copy of OSX onto any single machine. However, such an act by the end user may violate the EULA.
If such an act were illegal, the criminal justice system would prosecute Psystar, Quo, etc., instead of Apple filing civil lawsuits. EULAs are (at most) private contracts, not government laws.
Thus, the Psystar case will not determine whether or not it is illegal to install OSX on a non-Apple machine — the outcome of the case will only determine whether or not the civil courts deem valid the particular EULA clause(s) in question.
Edited 2009-07-21 02:01 UTC
Yes. Rashantha mentioned that Quo has legal input.
None. In some respects, Quo would like to distance themselves from Psystar. Rashantha told me that he has been in contact with them Psystar and he feels like his business operates under a different vision.
Likely never. Rashantha actually worries about this. Rashantha actually hopes to speak with someone from Apple one day to iron out their differences.
Wow, with all the questions you can answer, you sure did a thorough interview with him! Good job, oso2k!
Thanks.
BTW, there was tons more I wanted to write about but our 4 hour conversation made tons of tangents and wouldn’t have been a very coherent article.
Exactly that’s what I was hinting at 😉
It’s the other way on actually. Until the particular clause in that EULA can be enforced then it isn’t worth the screen space it is written on.
Yeah, what happens if it is enforced?
I’m just saying, that I wouldn’t be too eager to invest my money in the venture. I also wouldn’t bother springing for any kind of warranty from them either.
The clause has been around for a long time and it still isn’t being enforced. The market doesn’t stand still. In terms of weighing up the risk and getting a new market that can give them competitive advantage then an OEM is currently going to choose the latter every time. If it becomes untenable then they can always stop.
They can always stop. Of course, its just a matter of if the circumstances surrounding their stoppage will allow them to continue as a profitable business.
I can always stop myself form falling out of an airplane. However, there are some circumstances around the stopping that will allow me to continue living, and others that will not.
Whatever happens it won’t stop them being an OEM and it won’t stop them making money in the meantime.
That’s a really stupid analogy. There is a big incentive for OEMs here that is definitely worth any risk. Not paying attention to Apple’s EULA simply can’t be compared with the risk of falling out of an aeroplane and ‘continuing to live’. That’s the kind of bullshit that Apple zealots come out with who believe in Apple’s God-like power.
Edited 2009-07-22 23:25 UTC
…someone questions that Apple is building a monopoly by requiring customers to run OSX only on Apple hardware when technically it’s obvious it runs on other hardware just fine. How will a court see this situation ?
Same thing with cell phones that only work with a given carrier. That’s just plain stupid and has to change someday.
Apple should know better to not be evil and change their OSX EULA to remove the restriction on Apple hardware when they switched from PowerPC to Intel. Not doing so just show much they care about their customers.
These is from a guy typing from his MacBook 13″… which I love by the way. But not having the option to buy OSX and install it on my Lenovo laptop is just wrong.
So, Apple don’t argue and other groups pop up all over the world and suddenly, Apple are no longer selling Macs and stop developing Mac OS X, except for iPhone.
I owned a PowerComputing clone and it was great. They gave me the machine that Apple either didn’t want to sell or couldn’t build for some reason. However, the whole mess nearly finished Apple and Macintosh but this time, no one is paying royalties.
You must be joking… they’re paying for a full legal copy of OSX.
If Apple didn’t really want people to do this, they shouldn’t sell retail copies – or they should increase the price.
Apple surely must have known what would happen, and if their plan all along was to cry foul, and hope that somehow they would find a way to legally prevent their own paying customers from using the software they purchased however they wished, then they are at fault for making stupid business decisions.
but thats the problem, like iTunes the software is there to attract users to the hardware. iTunes is there purely to drive the iPod and now iPhone, the store is just a cherry on top for users, apple doesn’t make much money from itunes sales after bandwidth, credit card and music royalties.
This is the same for Mac OSX, the price is cheap as it drives people to use their hardware, to keep with apple. Apple is not out to make a profit through Mac OSX sales purely in the software space, if they were we would see Mac OSX for any intel machine.
So apple isn’t really getting much money from the sale of Mac OSX which has incurred a lot of expense during the development of the product.
I can see that if more clone makers pop up, this will start to hurt apple, to which i can see them introducing a hardware method of stopping the install on non apple machines.
Apple’s hardware and software is a complete package, it’s different from Microsoft’s software sales / OEM provider approach. This is why you can’t force apple to start selling OSX which works on any computer, it’s part of the overall package. It’s like asking for the software behind any piece of hardware to be released so you can run it on any machine, for example the symbian OS in nokia’s
Apple never had a problem with the hackingtosh scene, however i feel they are the ones that are going to suffer with the increased amounts of clone makers appearing on the scene, as others have mentioned, clones nearly destroyed apple the last time around.
You can find Samsung phones, for example, that run on the same Symbian S60 platform. Nokia is reasonable about this and they license their software to others.
I support the clone-makers because they are freedom fighters. Apple is all locked up at the expanse of their customers. There is nothing wrong with installing legally purchased copies of OS X on any hardware that can run it.
Apple can still profit without problems. It’s not like they are installing pirated copies. Also, there will be people who will choose Apple hardware anyway, because of its quality and design.
Currently, Microsoft is a very open and friendly company, compared to Apple. It’s time Apple did something about this.
i want a copy of the os in Xbox360 so that i can build my own xbox clone and sell it
Edited 2009-07-21 12:02 UTC
I would support that just as much..
…provided that for each XBox clone you sell, you bought an original copy of the 360 software – meaning, you would have to buy a 360 for each clone you sell, since Microsoft does not sell the 360 OS at retail. You would also have to remove said 360 OS from each and every 360 you bought.
If you can do all that – be my guest. Don’t think you’d make much of a business though.
Suppose I’m a knife maker that inherited the business from my father, who used to sell knives for $50, say. I worry that people might hurt each other with my knives, so I offer them at a huge discount ($25) to those agreeing not to cut or threaten anyone with a knife with my brand on it.
I later realize that I should only sell knives under such a contract, to maintain my moral integrity. Indeed, I don’t actually sell them the knife, but rather a perpetual license to use it subject to the terms of my “EULA”, and the licensee (“buyer”) must return it if I the license terms are broken.
How is this different from Apple putting arbitrary conditions on the use of their software? While it sucks that they do so, is there anything wrong with what Apple does from a legal or moral standing?
RMS saw this kind of thing as a social problem, which he solved by initiating GNU, not forcing the IBMs and Apples of the world to change policy.
For the umpteenth bazzilionth time:
There is NOTHING inherently wrong with Apple wanting to restrict the use of its software to its own hardware. The problem is HOW they do it.
Post-sale restrictions are evil. They should be unlawful all over the world, because as a buyer and customer, you have no idea what you agree to until the purchase is already completed.
If Apple wants to do this right, they’ll have to offer the EULA as PART OF THE SALE. THAT is how other industries do this, and there is NO reason why the software world can’t do the same.
Take Ferrari. They have the Ferrari FXX, a special car they produced only to test out new innovations before sticking them onto ordinary Ferrari production cars. They offered these FXX cars for sale, but alongside comes a very special contract: you do not buy the car, you buy the right to use it on certain tracks when Ferrari approves. The car remains the property of Ferrari.
Ferrarri offers this contract as PART OF THE SALE, and as such, the buyer is fully aware of what he’s buying. With Apple’s, and other software makers’, EULAs, this is NOT the case.
Lawmakers should be much more strict with this, but I suppose most of them aren’t too versed in this subject (yet). For me to respect ANY EULA, it will have to be presented to me as PART OF THE SALE, not a second later. If I complete the purchase of software without the EULA ever being presented to me by the outlet, said software will fall under normal copyright laws, and normal copyright laws (with possible software exceptions) place absolutely no restriction on what hardware you install it on.
Any EULA presented post-sale can suck a big fat cockcicle.
Edited 2009-07-21 13:22 UTC
Car analogy FTW!
For the 1 millionth time, Microsoft derives their revenue from software and Apple derives theirs from hardware mostly. Even the software they’ve acquired was reduced in price immediately to provide a path to Apple machines.
If there are so few people buying Apple hardware, there is no reason for Apple to continue Mac OS X or to pay for their engineering staff to develop hardware. Once the computers are gone, there isn’t much reason for them to be in business as the iPod/iPhone business isn’t much of a money maker by itself.
Trying to sell it without hardware, for Apple to make money on the Mac OS X client version, they’d have to sell it for around US$299 and we all know how popular Microsoft’s upper end is. People will find any way around the pricing. Besides, for that price, people will just stick with Windows.
For anyone who thinks that a dead Apple will turn Mac OS X into the public domain, you can’t be serious.
There was a whole article here disputing what you just said, so I won’t bother repeating it.
That has to be the most unintentionally funniest thing I’ve heard all year. If I were a less jovial man, I would probably be disgusted. For your information, the following are what are generally considered “freedom fighters”: –
-Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
-Nelson Mandella
-Christiaan Boers
The following are not:
-Psystar
-Quo
So if you consider opportunistic companies to be champions of your freedom, if you… heh… consider yourself oppressed by Apple, consider yourself a VERY lucky man.
That is and has always been Apple’s business philosphy, and I do find it a good one. But I also find merit in other people’s remarks that OSX can be bought separately and that in fact, Snow Leopard will be cheaper than Leopard.
I think the Hackintosh resellers ought to have the right to exist. I see no harm in them offering machinery that allows more people to become accustomed to Mac OS and see what a great platform it is, at far lower cost than the official Macs. I think that most of these people will eventually see the added value of an official Mac. Because that is where the Hackintosh resellers cannot win: new features based on R&D.
Take my MacBook Pro, for example. I truly appreciate its subtle features: the unibody, the multi-touch trackpad (already can’t imagine life without it), the LED battery indicator, the “sleep” light completely hidden from sight when it’s off, the MagSafe connector (I had to throw away my old Dell laptop because the power connector was broken). Yes, I *am* willing to pay the extra price for it.
From the users’ standpoint, of course having choice is great. But why do they have the right to run OS X anywhere? If Apple decides it doesn’t like it, don’t they have a right to set the terms to whatever they want, and we can use/buy something else if we don’t like it?
I mean, suppose the opposite were true, that user’s could set the terms to whatever we wanted. Then Apple might go out of business, or be less profitable and thus get less investment, which means less research $ and thus fewer cool designs, etc., a kind of slow death.
What if Apple refused to comply with the user’s wishes to run anywhere, despite some potential law giving users’ rights to run software anywhere? E.g., what if onerous measures were introduced, e.g., a minor chip put on the motherboard that is otherwise whitebox PC, or actually using TPM, or validating the serial # of the CPU, etc. In breaking this (fictitious) law, should Steve Jobs be put in jail?
All of this seems to say that if you have a principled problem with OS X restrictions, you must leave Mac entirely, and go GNU/Linux or BSD, etc.
So Apple has started making RAM, CPUs, motherboards, hard drives, etc? Or, when you wrote “Apple’s hardware,” did you actually mean “Intel’s/Asus’/etc off-the-shelf hardware that Apple slaps a shiny case on”?
How exactly is that a “complete package?”
Horribly-flawed analogy – last I checked, Nokia doesn’t sell their OS at retail.
If Apple is incapable of competing, then why should they get special treatment?
Except that today Apple IS a clone maker.
Speaking of Lenovo, it’s often occurred to me that a good compromise would be if Apple licensed OS X – but only to specific companies, and only on specific “Apple-approved” models.
I know I definitely would be tempted if OS X were a BTO-option on some of the higher-end Thinkpads.
I visited Quo Computers last week. It seems like a great shop with a really wonderful owner.
They sell machines with EFI motherboards, so that shrink-wrap OS X will indeed install on them.
I think the impression of sketchy hacked hardware really needs to be quelled here. It is hardly illegal to sell Intel EFI motherboards.
Rashantha told me he will provide installation services for customer-purchased software, including boxed OSX, upon request. That seems a legally different animal than “pre-installation”.
Rashantha really struck me as a generally great guy and a good geek.
He spoke of other ambitions and gave the impression that his stylish spartan space of Quo is meant to be a vehicle for many future things – part Open Source, part developer venue, part business, part community service.
Here, here.
Indeed. The reasons for Apple moving to Intel were better performance and lower hardware costs via greater economies of scale. The side-effect of that is that it was obviously only going to be a matter of time before OS X could easily be installed on comparable machines with the same supplied hardware.
Apple will just have to lie in that bed now and they can’t expect any help from Intel because Intel would have to be stupid to try and limit a potentially large new market for their hardware.
Of course, whenever a true Maclot is confronted with that reality, they will just stick their fingers in their ears and yell:
“La la la la, OS X only runs well on Apple hardware because Steve Jobs personally sprinkles magical pixie dust on every Mac. Anyone who disagrees is an Apple-hating Microsoft shill with Mac-envy who doesn’t appreciate ‘The Mac Experience’ (and other vague, pseudo-intellectual horseshit).”
Edited 2009-07-21 17:01 UTC
They are not using EFI motherboards. They are using standard Gigabyte motherboards along with EFIX modules.
There is little to go out and attack here in the case of this small business, though we will see if Apple does respond anyway.
This guy’s business is the same as if I helped someone for a fee install Mac OS X on their computer – they would understand that if they have problems, they should come back to me. I would make it clear too that their install should work, but at best, it is unsupported. Nothing wrong with that – it is an interesting business model. The fact that he personally goes and picks up copies of Leopard for his customers is cute (and probably the way to keep it legal, since he is just buying for his customers).
Apple has a right to sell their products where and how they choose with whatever strings attached that make legal and financial sense to them.
Consumers have a likewise freedom to buy in or move on.
I still don’t know what else there is to argue about.
And please, folks, let’s lay off the ridiculous analogies. They get old and don’t do anything to advance the conversation.
Wow this isn’t too far from my house, I should take a trip to their store and check it out…and buy myself a hakintosh…eerrr…a new desktop, yeah that’s it!
Edited 2009-07-22 21:32 UTC