Apple is known for its secrecy in product development and launches and its cleverly hid another huge branch of its business – until today. Apple already owns a massive hunk of land in North Carolina that houses one of its data centers, but little was really known about what the space’s true purpose was. Apple held its annual shareholders meeting yesterday and confirmed that the 500,000 sq. ft. of space would be the hub used for MobileMe and iTunes services.
Apple’s other data center is located in Newark, California and is 107,000 sq. ft. and was purchased in 2006 for $50 million from MCI WorldCom. The North Carolina hub will cost about $1 billion to fully finish.
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What does this mean for you? Ever heard of the “cloud”? It’s been speculated for years that iTunes would team up with MobileMe for a cloud-based iTunes streaming service. Or in other words, iTunes users would have access to their desktop account from their iPhones. New speculation about Apple’s cloud also includes chatter about MobileMe’s digital online “locker” that would store your personal files including photos and video. Apple is also considering making its MobileMe service free.
There’s also speculation that Apple is looking to expand the North Carolina location to 1 million sq. ft. in the future. Apple is holding a press event on March 2 to most likely unveil the iPad 2 and hopefully some information about how users can access their iTunes account from their desktop at work and home onto their iPhone.
