Apple has deliberately ignored that potential "huge market segment" for years, to great success. Their brand, at least in the eyes of regular consumers, is prob

Apple has deliberately ignored that potential "huge market segment" for years, to great success. Their brand, at least in the eyes of regular consumers, is probably perceived as a bit overpriced, but you know you are paying for a singular solid quality experience. The opposite is true of Windows and PCs, where I think generally (at least using my parents as a barometer) the feeling is that you're taking a bit of a gamble. Allowing 3rd parties to build licensed OS X machines would do little for Apple but destabilize their platform, which is currently built on the premise that 100% of the package from the pre-installed apps to the OS to the casing to every component inside is vetted and tested to work well together by Apple's army of genius proto-wizards "in beautiful California." That would be utterly destroyed the moment people could buy a 3rd party computer which pops up the "Mac OS X" logo on boot, and then immediately asks the user if they want to install the AOL trial, Google toolbar, Yahoo toolbar, and Dan's Discount Video Editor EX Lite Edition (Upgrade today!).