New Mac Clones From Offshore

By Tuan An Nguyen
published

A PC company called Open Tech this week announced that it would follow in Psystar’s foot steps and sell Apple Mac clones. The kicker here is that Open Tech does not pre-install Leopard onto its computers. Simply put, the outfit’s PC is just a standard clone with instructions on how to install Mac OS X Leopard.

We visited Open Tech’s website at iopentech.tk and found that the company is located in Tokelau, a territory belonging to New Zealand with the website itself being hosted in the Netherlands. According to our research, Open Tech’s website doesn’t offer anything for sale, and the store is completely empty, with all items listed as coming soon.

Looking through its offerings, Open Tech shows off two systems, the Open Tech Computer 1.0 and the Open Tech XT, each going for $620 USD and $1200 USD respectively. Unfortunately, no pictures are shown of the computers except for their generic cases.

On the store front, all the components listed are one per category. For example, there’s only one hard drive for sale, and it’s listed as "Internal 500GB Hard-drive" without any description of the product itself. Instead, Open Tech says that the drive holds "1066 action-packed games." We’re not quite sure what games Open Tech is going by, but it definitely isn’t any game in recent history. Using Open Tech’s metric, customers will only be able to install games that are roughly 400 MB large.

At this time, no orders can be placed on anything listed on Open Tech’s website. According to research, .tk websites are notorious for hosting scam related websites. Buying a PC in the U.S. from a company located in the Netherlands or in New Zealand, sounds like something users should be very cautious about.

Mac cloner Psystar is now feeling immense legal pressure from Apple, despite previously saying that it would do anything to "help" Apple out with sales. Recently, Psystar listed its office building for sale, after Apple filed a number of suits against Psystar. With Open Tech running its operations overseas, it all feels like murky waters from here on out.

Tuan An Nguyen
13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Tokelau is not located in New Zealand but a territory of New Zealand.
    New Zealand is at the bottom of the South Pacific just south east of Australia and Tokelau is located closer to the equator on top of American Samoa. Even the Nederlands is in Europe at the other side of the world. Please check your atlas or googling before publishing your articles.
    Reply
  • SirCrono
    I really hope Psystar or Open tech make a lot of cash so apple realizes how overpriced their crap is.
    Reply
  • waffle911
    At no point did the article imply that the Netherlands were anywhere outside of Europe, let alone in New Zealand. To an outsider, it would be easy for someone not familiar with the Oceana continent to mistake Toklau, as a territory of New Zealand, as being close enough to be considered "in" or at least directly off the coast of New Zealand.
    Reply
  • wavetrex
    I really doubt this company even exists. Anyone can create .tk domains even without paying for them.

    If I want to, tomorrow I'll have a Mac-clone company with a nice .tk website selling PC's.

    This is 100% a scam ( or will be at the moment they place an "order" button on the site.
    Reply
  • Coyle
    ...but they are getting tons of traffic!
    Reply
  • Haiku214
    Don't you think all these copycat companies are just made up by Apple themselves for marketing purposes? hmmmm :P
    Reply
  • crom
    Yay! I can finally get that sketchy mac I always wanted! Thank god everything on the internet is true!
    Reply
  • 1pp1k10k4m1
    anonymus...if you READ the article it states "...located in Tokelau, a territory belonging to New Zealand with the website itself being hosted in the Netherlands." It doesn't say Tokelau is IN New Zealand. It implies later that perhaps it is in "Buying a PC in the U.S. from a company located in the Netherlands or in New Zealand, sounds like something users should be very cautious about." But that could be easily seen as a generalization based on the previous detail they provided, ya know, that the reader would understand. Implication I think is the word. Kind of like where you write "Please check your atlas or googling before publishing your articles." IF we took you literally one could ask "How does one check their googling?" Perhaps by checking the spelling of their search? That wouldn't be very productive. But it is IMPLIED that you mean to check their research BY googling. So A) please actually read the article BEFORE posting, and B) please keep it in context, because if this is any sample of your writing, then being overly critical of you probably wouldn't be too difficult.
    Reply
  • 1pp1k10k4m1
    anonymus...if you READ the article it states "...located in Tokelau, a territory belonging to New Zealand with the website itself being hosted in the Netherlands." It doesn't say Tokelau is IN New Zealand. It implies later that perhaps it is in "Buying a PC in the U.S. from a company located in the Netherlands or in New Zealand, sounds like something users should be very cautious about." But that could be easily seen as a generalization based on the previous detail they provided, ya know, that the reader would understand. Implication I think is the word. Kind of like where you write "Please check your atlas or googling before publishing your articles." IF we took you literally one could ask "How does one check their googling?" Perhaps by checking the spelling of their search? That wouldn't be very productive. But it is IMPLIED that you mean to check their research BY googling. So A) please actually read the article BEFORE posting, and B) please keep it in context, because if this is any sample of your writing, then being overly critical of you probably wouldn't be too difficult.
    Reply
  • Actually, Tokelau was first implied as "located in New Zealand". Only after receiving the first comment did the article was revised.
    Reply