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Apple Businesses Hardware

iBox Episode 2 441

coolgeek writes "According to this article on Wired, the iBox (original SlashDot post), later renamed to the CoreBox, has run into some trouble. Their strategy is to clone Mac computers using spare parts from repair centers. Evidently, the supplier of the repair parts was reminded by Apple Computer's Legal Department that supplying to a computer manufacturer was a breach of contract. Consequently, the supplier has chosen to stop supplying parts. More information on at the CoreComputing website, and they say the game isn't over yet..."
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iBox Episode 2

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  • by bogie ( 31020 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:33PM (#6228048) Journal
    I mean who whould have guessed Apple would have threatened to sue their supplier into oblivion?
    • Re:Big surprise (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bsharitt ( 580506 )
      He should be come an Apple authorized repair person. he wouldn't be selling parts to a manufacturer.

      • Yeah, I'm sure the license he'd have to sign is only two lines long, and has huge gaping loop holes that would allow such things to be done, that Apple's army of ravenous lawyers just hasn't thought of... ;-)
  • by Phroggy ( 441 ) * <slashdot3@NospaM.phroggy.com> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:34PM (#6228057) Homepage
    I was under the impression that every Apple-authorized repair center had a similar contract with Apple, which is why I didn't put too much stock in the original story (I expected this to happen - similar things have been tried before). Where are they going to find reliable suppliers who are not authorized by Apple?

    I remember that one of the CPU upgrade makers had a deal where they'd send you a new CPU and daughtercard, and give you a major discount if you sent in your old daughtercard (so they could swap CPUs and resell it, since they had no other way to obtain the daughtercards the CPUs were soldered to). I don't think that strategy would really work in this case.
    • I have no idea how this kind of thing can be legal. It is anti-competitive by definition and if it was Microsoft doing it ppl would be all over them.
      Why is it acceptable that Apple can bully companies into oblivion? Just because it's not Microsoft? Or is it because their PCs are prettier and BSD-based? I thought the whole point of capitalism was that through competition among large numbers of companies, consumers would get better and cheaper products with the passing of time.
      Mod me down if you must, I reali
      • Bully?! Bully who? Apple has a contract to supply *replacement* parts to these companies. They do not and never have had a contract that allows these companies to *build* Macs. If these companies want to build Macs, they can go through the proper channels to get the tech info/parts they need. And if they can't strike a deal, they can find another business. There are plenty of computers to build and sell without trying to usurp the Macintoshes. This underhanded stuff just isn't going to fly.
        • How is it any more underhanded then reverse engineering the IBM BIOS from scratch? Just because you made an agreement doesn't make the agreement right. How is what you're talking about any different then the contracts Microsoft signed with clone-makers in mid-90s to squelch OS/2?
          • Re:Underhanded? (Score:5, Interesting)

            by MoneyT ( 548795 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @08:29PM (#6228489) Journal
            Because when you reverse engineer the BIOS and write your own, you're not using the original IBM parts anymore. THis person was using original Apple parts.
      • Apple needs to sell their hardware. They have competition from PCs. Macs are like the Rolex of computers (bear with me here), and these 2khappyware.com knockoffs are like the "Rolecks" watches that they sell on the street corners in NY.
  • iBox (Score:3, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:35PM (#6228067) Homepage
    Dirty-joke-sense tingling.

    Stop tingling, dammit.
  • Availibilty (Score:2, Insightful)

    by agent dero ( 680753 )
    Now do you really think good quality parts are just laying around at repair centers?

    Great business strategy, buy broken, or unusable parts, build computer out of them, and sell to Joe Smoe who can't afford an Apple, so he'll buy an Apple?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      " Now do you really think good quality parts are just laying around at repair centers?

      They aren't lying around. They are in those cardboard boxes in the basement, tossed in with pieces of Apple II shells that have gone a rich brown with age, 60 pin ribbon cables, the occasional Sinclair TS-1000 taken in on trade, and that Apple /// that really smells burnt when someone plugs it in.
    • Re:Availibilty (Score:2, Informative)

      The aren't broken parts. They are original OEM parts that were intended to be used to replace broken parts on computers brought in for repair.
  • 'Home Repair' (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sbszine ( 633428 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:37PM (#6228080) Journal
    the supplier of the repair parts was reminded by Apple Computer's Legal Department that supplying to a computer manufacturer was a breach of contract

    I wonder if it's okay to supply parts to a (non-business) individual, for 'DIY home repair'? Could be a good way to put together an OS X box on the cheap.
    • Re:'Home Repair' (Score:5, Informative)

      by phillymjs ( 234426 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMstango.org> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:49PM (#6228181) Homepage Journal
      IIRC, repair parts are only supposed to be available to Apple Authorized Service Centers. At any rate, they (things like logic boards, at least) are very expensive to buy-- the service center gets a credit when they return the bad parts they replace. I believe that pricing structure is in place solely to make it prohibitively expensive to roll your own Mac with purchased service parts.

      And Apple is far from the only company that does something like that. You think service parts purchased legitimately from a Chevrolet dealer will let you assemble your own Corvette for less than the normal price of a factory-built one? Hell, no!

      ~Philly
      • drive a jeep! ;)
      • Re:'Home Repair' (Score:3, Interesting)

        by halo1982 ( 679554 )
        And Apple is far from the only company that does something like that. You think service parts purchased legitimately from a Chevrolet dealer will let you assemble your own Corvette for less than the normal price of a factory-built one? Hell, no!

        Someone in my highschool autoshop class priced out how much it would cost for him to build a complete new Mustang from scratch, down to every last part, from the Ford dealership. I think it ended up comming out to well over $100k

    • Re:'Home Repair' (Score:5, Informative)

      by Brett Johnson ( 649584 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @08:07PM (#6228339)
      Last I checked, a Sawtooth (G4-AGP) motherboard was $800 (w/o CPU), and the customer was not allow to buy it for self install. Only the certified repair shop was allowed to perform the install. I was looking because I have an older Sawtooth that doesn't support dual processors.

      So the cost of the replacement motherboard and a Sonnet Duet card far exceeded the purchase price of a new Mac when offset with selling the old one on eBay.
  • by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:37PM (#6228085) Homepage
    low-cost, configurable Mac clones based on older motherboards from Apple.

    Dude, I wonder why when I booted up my Mac it said:

    APPLE ][

    ]_
  • by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:39PM (#6228113)
    I could just see it, a few hours after the Apple store closes, the dumpster divers show up and root through the trash.

    Thanks to their hard work, you can buy an iBox, no two the same. Today they are offering a special on an iMac hybrid that has a modern flat-screen stuck on the front of an old bulbous blue first-gen iMac that has an orange mouse.

    Tomorrow, they expect to have a "PowerBox" PowerBook made from notebook guts obtained during a particularly successful dumpster-dive installed into the toilet-seat discarged by the plumbing place next door. The local wildlife was restless that night: this machine has a live mouse.
    • by pla ( 258480 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:51PM (#6228207) Journal
      Today they are offering a special on an iMac hybrid that has a modern flat-screen stuck on the front of an old bulbous blue first-gen iMac that has an orange mouse.

      Thank you, for reminding me why people really stay loyal to Apple.

      Not because of better hardware (since even their "new" machines will fall woefully short of a PC with a mid-end AMD)...

      Not because of price (since those same new machines will cost more than a fully decked out dual Opteron)...

      But because of color coordination.

      "Mauve... I think I'll paint the ceiling Mauve. It'll match this season's iMac".

      Welcome to the world of Stetford Users. ;-)


      (Karma hell, here I come).
      • MID-end? (Score:3, Funny)

        by autopr0n ( 534291 )
        Not because of better hardware (since even their "new" machines will fall woefully short of a PC with a mid-end AMD)...

        Wow, I didn't even know there was a mid-end. I knew about the high end, and I knew about the low end. but this mid-end concept is totally blowing my mind. Is it anything like the 'mid-range'?
  • by Ineffable 27 ( 203704 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:40PM (#6228117)
    Begun, this Clone War has....
  • Noooo.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:41PM (#6228124) Homepage
    I can't believe this!! I mean - Apple doing evil? Restricting [slashdot.org] rights? Stifling competition [slashdot.org]??? And then reported on Slash-"Jobs can do no bad"-Dot?

    What is going on!!??

    • Re:Noooo.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      Oh please.

      Apple is saying you aren't going to be using their spare parts to undersell them. Nothing more. How are they restricting anyones rights in this case? By not letting them build and sell what are in essence Apple computers? Boo-Fucking-Hoo. Next you'll say that BMW is stifling competition because they won't let someone put together 5 series cars out of spare parts and sell them at half the price of a new BMW made 5.

      Now if Apple was trying to jump on someone for using a generic board that Appl
      • Except (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mindstrm ( 20013 )
        BMW *will* let you buy all the spare parts and make your own, because you'll find it way cheaper to just buy a new BMW.

        • Re:Except (Score:3, Interesting)

          Certainly they will. Should you find someone willing to sell you enough parts (at a low enough price) to open a dealership stocked with BMW's that are merely missing the BMW badge and cost a third of what one made by BMW costs then the exact same thing will happen.

          BMW will find out where you got enough parts to do this, shut the flow of parts to you off, and probably send the legal boys to sue you back to the stone age. I am surprised that the Core people haven't heard from the Apple legal team yet. It'
        • Re:Except (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Theaetetus ( 590071 )
          BMW *will* let you buy all the spare parts and make your own, because you'll find it way cheaper to just buy a new BMW.

          Great idea... Hey Apple, Mindstrm just suggested the solution. Charge 10x the price for each part. Give a 9x credit on returns of damaged parts*.

          Fair, right? Enjoy your $20,000 iBox. :)

          (That is what you suggested, right?)

          -T

          *Incidentally, Apple does this now - but not with such a huge markup.

  • by Tweakmeister ( 638831 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:41PM (#6228127) Homepage
    One has to wonder what would happen NOW if Apple suddenly allowed clones.

    I guess it doesn't fit into their ultimate scheme of things. They don't really seem to care about overwhelmingly taking a huge chunk of the market (only enough to be "profitable")...err, only enough at their pace.
  • I'm sure most people familiar with this product aren't surprised that Apple took this route. This company should've taken a different strategy and market this as a PPC box that could run Linux and then leak to Mac sites that this could also run Mac OS.
  • The iBox would devistate sales for Apple if it went off without a hitch. A fast, cheap, and easily upgradable box might be exactly what consumers want but that doesn't matter. Mac OS X costs more to make than Apple charges for it. Most people would buy an iBox to suppliment their current machine (server, etc) and would probably not even buy a new license of OS X.

    So you get a nice cheap box, but at what real cost? The degradation of OS X? The death of Apple? Wake up, the iBox would be bad for everyone
  • by maliabu ( 665176 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:49PM (#6228187)
    is it more acceptable for hardware manufacturer to fence off competitors? eg Apple restricting parts to be used on Apply-Only machines, while everyone's crying foul when MS is trying to install its own browser on its own product (and still allows competing browsers to be installed).

    imagine what would happen if Ford only allows its "rolling" tyres to be fitted on its cars...
    • by xombo ( 628858 ) * on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:55PM (#6228245)
      is it more acceptable for hardware manufacturer to fence off competitors? eg Apple restricting parts to be used on Apply-Only machines, while everyone's crying foul when MS is trying to install its own browser on its own product (and still allows competing browsers to be installed).

      That is a horrible comparason, MacOS X can be uninstalled from your mac, and you can install somthing different, you can't uninstall internet explorer and put in Mozilla though, you have to keep IE.
      • That is a horrible comparason, MacOS X can be uninstalled from your mac, and you can install somthing different, you can't uninstall internet explorer and put in Mozilla though, you have to keep IE.

        Well, you have to 'keep' it, but you don't ever need to use it to surf the web.
    • by TheGreek ( 2403 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @08:13PM (#6228389)
      No.

      This is like Ford allowing its replacement engines only to be put in Ford vehicles requiring repair, and disallowing them to be used to build a new, third-party vehicle.

      Perfectly reasonable and legitimate.
      • This is like Ford allowing its replacement engines only to be put in Ford vehicles requiring repair, and disallowing them to be used to build a new, third-party vehicle.

        However car companies understand what an asshole that would make them look like, and instead they just make their engines expensive to build from parts ordered from the shop. Not only that the automotive industry makes a ton of money on parts; The more cars that carry their engines, the more money they make on parts.

        Once again; Anal

  • Spare parts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mister Black ( 265849 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @07:58PM (#6228276)
    These are Apple spare parts. Apple has a limited stock of these to be used as replacements. They expect the part it replaces to be sent back so it can be reworked. There is not some magical motherboard fairy that creates an endless supply for someone to leech off and resell as new.
    • There is not some magical motherboard fairy that creates an endless supply for someone to leech off and resell as new.

      Actually, there is. Usually they call them 'wave-flow machines' though. And it's not like they're stealing the motherboards.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • cycles and cycyclecles
  • by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @08:16PM (#6228414)
    Okay, any other ex-Spry employees here that, when they see 'ibox,' think 'Internet in a Box'? Yikes. Time for some therapy to re-supress THOSE particular memories...
  • He was manufacturing clones from Apple parts purchased through a repair center. Of course he was going to get his supplier shut down. That was a stupid idea. He should have been buying gnereal PPC componenets and getting OS X to work on them.
  • Apple has strict, legally binding contracts with the vendors who sell their systems and service parts...so I can understand them wanting to enforce the contracts (otherwise precident is set).

    But, it's a shame that a young guy's business is being affected. Based on the press I've seen, he just wanted to do something cool and really wasn't just in it for the money.

    But, let's face it, I'm sure BMW or Mercedes would be a little perturbed if you started building cars based on their parts and not exactly hiding
  • I understand the mindset of the Apple fanatics.

    When Apple makes a move to shut someone down, they are doing it because they have to in order to survive. After all, they have less than 10% market share. They need to be a lot more defensive of the position that they have.

    Namely killing off PPC Mac clones, Purchasing NeXT instead of Be, Refusing to give Be the engineering specs that they needed to support the Be OS on post 9600 Macs, Killing off the iBox, whatever it happens to be.

    Steve Jobs understands tha
  • Google cache [216.239.57.100].

    Buy one now [2khappyware.com].

    Forums [2khappyware.com].
  • by Mikey-San ( 582838 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @09:24PM (#6228843) Homepage Journal
    I'm not gonna get into the debate over what Apple should or shouldn't be doing, but I've seen some in this thread wondering how it works, these contracts with service providers (AASPs, Specialists, and Self-servicing Providers).

    In a nutshell, here's how it works:

    There are two ways you can order parts from Apple, essentially:

    1. You can "service stock" the part. With this method, you buy it at the highest price. Apple doesn't expect anything back, since it's an order for something you want to stock, generally. It has other uses, but this is the main use.

    2. You can order an "exchange part", where you send back the defective or failed part upon completion of the repair. Using this method, the part's cost to you is cheaper, and thus cheaper to your customers (ideally). Exchange orders are typically the most popular types of orders.

    When I say cheaper via the exchange method, I mean it. Contractually, I can't disclose the difference(s)--it's essentially NDA information--but it's enough to warrant ordering exchange parts when you can.

    However, if you don't return the failed or defective part within a certain time window, you get invoiced for the full price of the part you ordered. This acts as a pretty decent fraud deterrent, since if you wanted to pay full price, knowing about the return date ahead of time, you would have stocked the part to begin with. (And you wouldn't have taken a hit on your service provider rating because you failed to return something to Apple.)

    Service providers are NOT allowed to buy most parts from Apple and resell them directly to others; non-CIPs (so-called "customer-installable parts", such as RAM and rechargeable batteries) must be installed by a service provider or returned to Apple.

    Just some info for the /. crowd interested. :-)
  • f-king idiots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by feldsteins ( 313201 ) <scott@@@scottfeldstein...net> on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @09:33PM (#6228885) Homepage
    Nobody will read this far down in the discussion but I just want to put this bit of truth out into the ether:

    1. Apple isn't evil because of "going after" this parts supplier. The supplier is in obvious breech of contract. Duh. There's plenty to criticise in the Apple company and in the Mac platform; pick a reason, just make it a valid one, okay?

    2. Clones are bad for the Macintosh platform. Bad, bad, bad. Any strategy which erodes their ability to leverage OS/iApps/Hardware into a seamless, second-to-none user experience will be death to the platform. It is not good. It is bad. It will kill the one, single unique thing about this company and they will be swallowed up into the sea of mediocrity that is the rest of the PC industry. Nobody should want that, as even PC users benefit from Apple's R&D. ...eventually.

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