Looks like Apple has blown its cover as a 'nice' company. An upstart named Psystar tried to sell Mac knock-offs for $399, but Steve Jobs & Co. lost no time coming after them with a meat-axe. Psystar returned to the market hours later with a slightly revised business model and a sales pitch even more coy than the first, but we'd need 10-to-1 odds to bet they'll survive Apple's next legal barrage. We've come to expect such hardball tactics from Microsoft, which seems never to have met a competitor that it did not target for extinction. But this kind of behavior seems less becoming of Apple, which has always tried to project a friendlier image than that of its co-founder, Steve Jobs, whose nasty side is legendary in Silicon Valley. Because Apple does not license its operating software to outside vendors, the idea of a box-maker selling computers that are compatible with Mac's Leopard operating system would appear to be baiting Apple's lawyers. But mightn't Jobs be willing to bend a little, considering that Mac has been unable to pick up market share, even against PCs that are now running the widely reviled Vista operating system? If ever there were a time for Mac to open its system architecture to licensees, this is it. Granted, Apple would initially cede substantial revenues to companies able to sell Mac clones for less than half the price of the real thing. But the Cupertino company could also conceivably double or triple its market share over the next few years if it gives up some exclusivity. Moreover, Apple would be in perfect position to kick Microsoft's butt when the Redmond firm releases its next operating system, supposedly around 2010. If that product accelerates Microsoft's descent into the lowermost imaginable depths of mediocrity, as we
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