Oh, for the good old days of the Clone Wars, when high drama was the order of the day and you couldn't click through two links without reading about Apple doing something worthy of being on the Young and the Restless. Thank goodness for nostalgia (and SEC filings)! The Austin American-Statesman reveals that while Power Computing COO Joel Kocher spent this summer publicly damning Apple for "taking away the consumer's right to choice," CEO Steve Kahng was already in negotiations with Apple to sell off its Mac OS business.

Power's is a story of dizzying highs and mindbending lows. After a spectacularly successful beginning in the Mac clone market, things started to sour last spring, when Power started to post unexpected losses. The losses mounted as Power spent more and more cash in preparation for opening a new corporate headquarters, and filing an IPO. But then Apple's growing dissatisfaction over the licensing issue came to a head, with Steve Jobs eventually halting certification of new designs not three weeks after MacWorld Expo, at which event Joel Kocher was extremely (and often inappropriately) vocal about his feelings towards Apple's kung-fu grip. And it was only shortly before the Expo that Steve Kahng had started talking to Jobs about a sale.

Jobs was none too pleased with Kocher's public outbursts, and told Kahng that the firebrand's comments were "going to cost [him] something." Sound like a vindictive and petulant comment? Whether or not Job's anger cost Power any money in the eventual deal is anyone's guess-- but we think a lot of people would guess "heck yeah." Unsurprisingly, Joel Kocher resigned just a few weeks after his MacWorld Expo shenanigans, citing "irreconcilable differences" with the way upper management was dealing with the licensing stall. Apparently selling out wasn't in his game plan.