A week ago we reported that Apple had finally filed suit against Mac clone maker Psystar. Apple claimed that Psystar was trading on the Apple brand and illegally releasing the Mac OS X operating system on clone hardware. Today we have learnt via Macblogs of a new clone maker, Open Tech, who are planning on filling the void that is likely to be soon left by Psystar.
Open Tech are taking more precautionary measures than Psystar, who traded openly from Florida, by setting up their company and domain hosting in the tiny atoll nation of Tokelau. The atolls, a former British Protectorate, measure only 10 square kilometers (5 square miles in funny units), have a population of 1,500 and an annual GDP of only $1.5M USD. It seems that the domain registry business associated with their .tk TLD has increased their annual GDP by 10% a year.
Domain name and host information reveals that the website is hosted in Germany and the company behind the domain is registered in The Netherlands. It may be that the company operates in Europe but has shielded itself behind a tiny nation in the Pacific.
The fact that Open Tech is setting up in such an esoteric location is a sure sign that they expect the wrath of Apple to come down hard and are taking precautionary measures. The website claims that their product range will retail soon, with a starting price of $620 USD for a clone machine with about four times the power and storage of a similarly-priced Mac mini. There is no information on where manufacturing takes place (I doubt they are setup on one of the Atolls) nor who is behind the company. We have sent an email to their PR contacts to get more information and will be updating this post accordingly.