Purported maker of OS X-compatible PC hardware Psystar under the hot lights

Things are getting a little uncomfortable, it seems, for Psystar, the company that announced on its Web site that it is putting together something first called the Open Mac, then the Open Computer, that takes commodity PC hardware and turns it into a box that either comes with OS X preinstalled or allows the buyers to do it themselves.

Everything from Google Earth searches to out and out surveillance of the company's various alleged addresses has been going on. Steve Jobs doesn't even have to hire Anthony Pellicano -- he's got the geek squad all over it.

Psystar has a message on their site today that attempts to, er, explain the situation:

We're in the process of moving to a new location which is now listed on our contact page. The first new address posted (10481) was in error and our correct address is 10475 NW 28th Street. PSYSTAR was, prior to this past week, not ready to handle the enormous production capacity demanded by the online community. Due to the incredible response we have now expanded to a larger commercial unit to handle the supplies and assembly of Open Computers. THANK YOU for all of your orders.

Midday yesterday our store was not receiving any orders. This was due to the fact that our merchant gateway, Powerpay, dropped the ball on us and refused to process any more transactions from our company. We have reverted to Paypal until we can find a high-volume merchant. Apparently Powerpay was not ready to handle the community's demand for Open Computing.

I guess we'll know what's what when somebody buys one of these boxes, receives it and runs the damn thing.

So is the whole thing a proverbial tempest in a teapot, or does this signal some kind of sea change (cliches? I've got a million of 'em!) in the world of OS X?

As it now stands, I don't thing Psystar is going to amount to much -- although I've been wrong before. It's possible that Psystar, or any number of other PC builders, will offer such a box -- something that makes putting OS X, with the work done by the OSX86 Project, on a non-Apple box. When you get right down to it, $129, which is what it costs for a copy of OS X, isn't that bad of a deal. Free Linux is a better deal, but I'm getting out of the bucket on that one.