Apple Claims More Than 100,000 .Mac Memberships, 1,000 More Every Day

by , 10:30 AM EDT, September 17th, 2002

Apple has announced that more than 100,000 Mac users have subscribed to .Mac, the company's for-fee version of the formerly-free iTools services. .Mac was announced at MACWORLD New York as a subscription service for US$99 per year, US$49.95 for the first year to iTools members. The services include the services formerly known as iTools, and Apple has added both new services since .Mac's introduction, and special offers to members.

In addition to the 100,000 member accounts that have signed up for .Mac, Apple says that new members continue to sign up at a rate of 1,000 a day. That's a minimum of US$4,995,000 added to Apple's cash flow, money the company needs to help boost its bottom line in a tight computer market. Apple CEO Steve Jobs cited the economic realities of offering free services in the current market as the reason the company was moving iTools to the for-fee .Mac service. The press release from Apple:

Apple® today announced that more than 100,000 Mac® users have subscribed to the company's .Mac suite of Internet services and software since it was launched in July. .Mac includes 100MB of Internet storage, seamlessly integrated into the Mac® OS X Finder(TM); Internet hosting for personalized homepages; iPhoto(TM) digital photo albums and iCal calendars; email service with IMAP, POP and web-based access; and antivirus and backup software.

"We're thrilled to have more than 100,000 .Mac subscribers so quickly," said Sina Tamaddon, Apple's senior vice president of Applications. "We're getting over 1,000 new .Mac subscribers every day, which is proof that many of our users want to seamlessly extend their digital lives onto the Internet."

.Mac requires Mac OS X version 10.1.3 or later, 128MB SDRAM, internal CD-RW or DVD-R drive (to create CD or DVD backups), and Netscape 4.7 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later. .Mac Slides, Backup v.1.2 and iCal require Mac OS X version 10.2 "Jaguar." The Virex anti-virus software, Mac.com email, iDisk, HomePage and iCards features of .Mac can also be accessed using Mac OS 9.

You can find more information on .Mac at the Mac.com Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

This is excellent news for Apple investors, as Wall Street is likely to appreciate this news. Apple has added some US$5 million to its bottom line from a completely new revenue stream, and that is something the company desperately needed. Apple is working hard to break even during the current quarter, which ends at the end of September, and this is revenue that will very much help meet that goal. While there are certainly increased costs that went along with converting iTools to .Mac, the service is still a very high-margin operation for Apple.

Today's announcement was also designed to show that the service has reached critical mass, something for which some potential .Mac customers, not to mention the Wall Street analysts, have been waiting.

.Mac