The Real Upgrade Apple Should Make To .Mac: Set It Free (AAPL)

Dan Frommer said:

This just in: .Mac solves crime!

http://gothamist.com/2008/05/09/say_cheese_lapt.php

David Dugan (URL) said:

It is a common theme that .Mac is overly expensive, but the "Back to my Mac" feature alone makes .Mac far less expensive than the Windows-equivalent "Go to My PC" service, which is $180 per year, without any of the other items that .Mac has to offer (email, web hosting, photo/video galleries, backup, sync, etc.).

Google, Yahoo!, etc. offer nothing like "Back to my Mac" or "Go to My PC" for their free services.

Food for thought...

Dan Frommer said:

May. 09, 3:25 PM

Well, happy to have .Mac as a freemium service where stuff like that is for-fee. But email, calendar, etc. should be a free way to entice people to ditch Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, etc. for the Apple brand. (Which, I think, many would.)

David Dugan (URL) said:

May. 09, 3:30 PM

More to your point: if Apple were interested in using this (rumored) batch of new .Mac services as a viable alternative to Microsoft Exchange, then yes, they should offer them for free. But I don't think that's their intention at all. I'm sure these are going to be very consumer-oriented services that no enterprise user would consider implementing, but will serve to make .Mac more valuable to the moms and pops out there.

Where Apple *is* trying to create a viable alternative to MS Exchange is with Leopard Calendar Server, which is part of OS X Server. That is the robust and open-source CalDAV solution which is enterprise-worthy, and indeed the clients for that service are quite free and included with every copy of the OS X client (Mail, iCal, Address Book, etc.).

David Dugan (URL) said:

May. 09, 3:33 PM

Dan, I think your point is valid. A lot of us have expected Apple to sort of merge most of those services under the Google umbrella by now. I think it's safe to say that no one has a clear vision of where .Mac is headed, and that may be true inside of 1 Infinite Loop as well :)

tina said:

May. 09, 3:35 PM

Why one earth would Apple offer anything for free? Macheads will buy anything if it has the Apple name behind it and somehow rationalize it like Dan (hint I get all those services for fre on my Vista machine). This is why I own the stock. Keep writing checks please.

Dan Frommer said:

May. 09, 3:47 PM

Tina, there's no way that .Mac is generating meaningful revenue for Apple.

Indeed! said:

May. 09, 3:54 PM

I've been saying this since Box.net and the other online storage services, etc. started developing Mac-compatible backup interfaces/services.

I'm a Mac user (and have been since '94), but I'm not a fan of .Mac at $10 a month.

.Mac can still offer a tiered service, etc. -- such as paying for more than the standard 5 gigs of free space (at LEAST match what Microsoft will be giving all Windows users), and then paying for upgrades from there.

But no... they're happy to fall further and further behind the storage startups...

Greed kills.

James Katt said:

May. 09, 3:54 PM

As an Apple Stock owner - i.e. Apple owner - the most important goal for Apple is to maintain viability by turning a profit. We have gone through years of inept CEOs at Apple pushing Apple to the brink of death.

.Mac should make a profit to be viable. Thus it should not be free. The fact that other services such as GMail and Yahoo are run at a lost does not mean .Mac should be given away free. Apple doesn't copy money-losing businesses - such as Palm.

Apple can continue to improve .Mac to make it more attractive to more people, thus justifying its cost. And Apple seems to be doing just that - for example, by upgrading it so that it has push email - thus competing directly with Blackberry and Microsoft without the costs of both.

It doesn't matter to Apple if .Mac is a niche. So long as .Mac makes a profit, that is O.K. People have complained for years about the Macintosh being a niche computer. However, even if it is a niche computer, Apple is now a $150 to $200 billion dollar company. So much for being a niche product.

Indeed! said:

May. 09, 3:54 PM

I've been saying this since Box.net and the other online storage services, etc. started developing Mac-compatible backup interfaces/services.

I'm a Mac user (and have been since '94), but I'm not a fan of .Mac at $10 a month.

.Mac can still offer a tiered service, etc. -- such as paying for more than the standard 5 gigs of free space (at LEAST match what Microsoft will be giving all Windows users), and then paying for upgrades from there.

But no... they're happy to fall further and further behind the storage startups...

Greed kills.

Dan Frommer said:

May. 09, 3:58 PM

James, Apple isn't a "$150 to $200 billion dollar company" because it charges $100 for .Mac.

But if it offers a free, compelling alternative to BlackBerry and whatever Google is sure to include (for free) with Android -- and if that helps Apple sell more iPhones and iPods, which in turn will help it sell more Macs (if you believe the iPod halo effect), then that's a lot more profitable in the long run than selling $100 email boxes to a tiny audience.

Constable Odo said:

May. 09, 4:12 PM

James Katt is on the money....
As a Mac user, what was said about giving away .Mac for free sounds fine for the miser in me. But as a long investor in Apple, I don't want the analysts and WS to look at a free .Mac as a money losing operation for Apple. I don't want anything to damage Apple's bottom line when it comes to profits.

Now if Apple were to offer a free trial period for a month or so and people find out how useful it is to them, then sock those people with perhaps say a $50 a year fee and maybe some premium services for more money, I wouldn't be against that. With millions upon millions of iPhones, that should balance out profits and losses. Haha.

First, let's just see how well Exchange Server works then move on from there.

Peter said:

May. 09, 5:08 PM

"But email, calendar, etc. should be a free way to entice people to ditch Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, etc. for the Apple brand. (Which, I think, many would.)"

Okay, quick note. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL are free services which also include advertising. Apple's .Mac does not.

So now you're saying that Apple should get into the advertising business? Or tie in with their buddies at Google to put advertising in your e-mail?

I'm not a .Mac member. For the last few years, I haven't thought of it as being useful. But it should definitely support push e-mail. I shouldn't have to go elsewhere to get a an e-mail account because Apple's services don't support my Apple device.

It's that simple.

eytan said:

May. 09, 5:10 PM

as a LONG time .mac user, I am certainly aware of what I get in .mac that I do not get from the free services (and note, Hotmail and Yahoo also have PAY services to get them were they are as useful, just in the mail, as .mac email is - most notably, access through a standard mail client using IMAP or IMAP like access).
The lack of advertising on the pages I host, the ability to have a website presence, the elegance the iLife applications have with .mac, and the synchronization between machines is well worth the $70 I pay annually (buy it online from a discounter and then punch in the code).
Just my .02

Anthony said:

May. 09, 5:57 PM

Those other services you mention are not actually free. You pay for such services by being bombarded with propaganda (aka advertising) while you use them.

Nor is .Mac free, it's just you pay for it upfront. I prefer it that way as I'm not interested in advertising.

Anthony said:

May. 09, 5:59 PM

What Apple should really do is offer the .Mac system as part of Mac OS X Server so we can use it on our own servers with our own domains, and so Mac-based web hosts can offer web hosting Mac-style.

william pelzel said:

May. 09, 7:01 PM

You can try .Mac free for 60 days!
https://www.mac.com/WebObjects/Signup.woa/wa/trial?aff=consumer&cty=US&lang=en

Rick Webb (URL) said:

May. 09, 7:20 PM

.Mac is worth twice what it costs just for back to my mac and .mac sync, neither of which have a comparable free product, that I know of, on either OS.

Tim F. said:

May. 09, 7:33 PM

The best solution is to have a free .Mac offering and a premium one (there already is, in a sense, when you purchase more storage). My gripe with .Mac is the number of hooks OS X, iLife, and even pro Mac apps have to it... moreover, these apps do not provide options to hook into other competing services.

Free - 2-5 GB of storage, no Back to My Mac, must have sync though (the storage limit may hinder it, but it's becoming a core piece of Apple's device and media strategy)

Basic - 10 GB storage + Back to My Mac

Premium - Buy additional storage

Those who are subscribing now would probably continue because of the space limits of the free offering and Back to My Mac. Every OS X user would actually start using .Mac rather than avoiding significant features in the OS and many of the apps which would probably actually attract more users. Shareholders and users win!

Mark Fuller said:

May. 09, 8:35 PM

I don't mind paying for .mac. It works for me and is worth it. The era of free services is declining and more companies realize that people are willing to pay for quality.

Partners in Grime (URL) said:

May. 10, 10:03 AM

.Mac needs more storage to be valuable in this video age.

AC (URL) said:

May. 10, 10:55 AM

Great piece! I maintain from my original take on the iPhone (from MacWorld 2007) that .Mac calendar and contact sync would be a killer app for it:

http://tinyurl.com/63cccr

"In my opinion Apple has missed a huge opportunity to peddle .Mac to iPhone users by offering wireless over-the-air sync of their personal info between the two platforms."

Brownian Motion said:

May. 10, 5:46 PM

Why does it have to be just one model? Apple would be able to do just fine giving away these services in an ad-supported model, with a premium-service for those who hate ads, want more storage, or certain premium features (Back to my Mac). The value of providing online services as part of the core Operating System will only be driven home as the competitive pressure from MSFT's Live grows. The first step in this direction was taking back the "default portal" for Safari (livepage.apple.com) from Netscape in '05.

@Mark Fuller

I'm not sure what you use to justify this, but there's a lot more evidence that the era of subscription services is over. Case in point is another Apple product: iTunes Music Store versus Rhapsody. Especially in a down economy, subscriptions are a luxury.

bc said:

May. 10, 7:55 PM

I had .mac when it was the free iTools but canceled when they started charging. Now I have it for a year because it came bundled with my Mac, and given the free alternatives like gmail and Mozy, I still don't see the value if you don't have more than one Mac (the synching does seem useful). I've always thought Apple should bundle .mac with AppleCare, and/or bundle it when you buy OSX and/or iLife separately from a new computer. That would encourage people to buy the latter and keep more customers tied to Apple via .mac.

chas_m (URL) said:

May. 10, 8:12 PM

Not that I would complain if .Mac became free, but may I remind YOU that the *reason* the other services are free is because there are ADS EVERYWHERE, including EMBEDDED IN YOUR EMAIL?

In my world, that is NOT cool.

.Mac is completely, utterly and totally ad-free. No embedded ads, no ads on the webpage, no ads at all.

That factor (along with the MANY features and generally seamless experience) make it worth the money. I blog, I web-gallery, I podcast, and without .Mac all that would cost me a lot in time AND money.

Good value. Nuff said.

Nick Weston said:

May. 11, 12:45 PM

I love .mac, use it every day for my business and home. I travel a lot, great for that.

Totally worth $10 a month.

I've looked into the free services but none have all the features of .mac.

Brian said:

May. 12, 8:56 AM

Uh, Apple already offered this for free, it was called iTools. What happened was that some Windows programs were written to sign automatically sign people up for multiple accounts, etc... it was totally abused.

I used to whine about this costing money, but the service is worth it and there is nothing even remotely comparable for windows.

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منتديات (URL) said:

Sep. 13, 6:05 AM

The Real Upgrade Apple Should Make To .Mac: Set It Free (AAPL)

Dan Frommer | May 9, 2008 2:33 PM

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