My first Mac was a PowerComputing PowerCenter 150 desktop model. I was so angry at Apple when they decided to shut down the Mac clone era. Looking back I now know it was the right thing to do: the Mac clones were first authorized to launch because Gil Amelio, then Apple CEO, thought it would help the Mac gain market share against Wintel. But the Mac clone makers were more innovative, had better products than Apple for a lesser price so the Mac clones were not making any dent in the Wintel market share but were predating over Apple's own market share.
As an example, if I would have bought the Apple PowerMac 7200 (with lesser specs than my PowerCenter, might I add), it would have cost me $1000CAN more than what I actually paid my Mac clone.
I heard that, when Jobs came back as CEO in 1997, His Steveness was not pleased at all that PowerComputing's G3 prototype, introduced in the Macworld show of that year, was running much faster than Apple's own G3 and that kind of sealed the fate of Mac clone makers. The clone makers were already neck deep in tough negotiation OS licensing talks with Apple for renewing their partnership: after that public humiliation, Jobs decided there were not going to be Mac clones anymore.
So Apple bought out PowerComputing, but hired the most brilliant hardware engineers from that company.
