September 2, 1997, Clone Era Ends

During the clone era at Apple, the company received a flat rate of $50 for each Mac compatible sold. An enviable sum for doing little more than providing a copy of the operating system, but a classic example of opportunity cost, one that CFO Fred Anderson said actually cost Apple ten times the amount in profit for each high-end machine bought from a cloner.

Steve Jobs wasn't a fan of the program either, famously calling the cloners, "leeches." Apple was desperate to get rid of the cloners and was able to achieve its goal with the transition to OS 8. One sticky wicket remained: Power Computing.

Apple did what a lot of big companies do when faced with the prospect of a successful lawsuit; it decided to buy Power Computing. In exchange for $100 million dollars Apple gained Power Computing's database, some of its key employees and a promise not to sue. The clone era ended when Apple announced the deal on September 2, 1997.