In his Business 2.0 blog, Erick Schonfeld speculates that at the upcoming Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Steve Jobs may announce that Apple’s .Mac Web service will become fully integrated with Google’s “Webtop” apps or possibly be replaced by them altogether.
This is an interesting idea that I’ve thought about since I’ve noticed the rise of GMail and the lackluster attempt of .Mac to keep up with GMail’s standards (and other free services for that matter, keep in mind .Mac is $99/year). While I severely doubt .Mac will be replaced altogether, I think that it is very possible to see tight integration of existing Apple apps (Mail, iCal, etc.) with Google’s services.
I can definitely see Google taking over the backend portion of the service, but I can’t see Apple giving up the frontend. The user interface is what Apple does best. The Webmail interface of .Mac is much better than GMail in my opinion. I’m also still a bit tethered to work in client apps. I really like apps that take the best of using clientside and Web apps and meld them together. Last.fm is a great example of that. Jobs himself discussed this concept at length in his joint interview with Bill Gates at the D: All Things Digital conference, and as Schonfeld mentioned, when asked about .Mac innovation, Jobs said, “stay tuned.”
I guess we’ll see what happens next week.
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