Neil HughesThe news suggests that Apple has experienced some delays with the new $1 billion data center in Maiden, N.C., as last October the company said it expected the facility to open "any day now."
Apple also said at its shareholder meeting that the North Carolina facility will be the company's second data center. The Mac maker has a multi-million dollar facility in Newark, Calif., that was originally built for telecommunications company MCI WorldCom.
For comparison, the existing Newark facility, acquired for an estimated $50 million back in 2006, is 107,000 square feet. Apple's new North Carolina data center will be nearly five times that, at 500,000 square feet, and there have even been suggestions that Apple is already looking to double it to a million square feet.
In addition to iTunes and MobileMe, the new North Carolina facility will also support Apple's corporate systems. But it's the uses for iTunes and MobileMe that will undoubtedly fuel speculation about Apple's long-rumored plans for a cloud-based iTunes streaming service.
Talk of Apple's potential future cloud services has picked up steam again recently, with a new rumor that the company plans to enhance its MobileMe service with a digital online "locker" that would store users' personal files, such as music, photos and videos. It was also said that Apple has considered making MobileMe, which currently costs $99 per year, a free service.
In addition, another report suggested that Apple's cloud plans would instead have users serve up their own files from a home computer. Content such as music could be streamed over the Internet to a connected device like an iPhone, as long as the "host" computer is active.
AppleInsider Staff
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
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52 Comments
The guy who was in charge of it passed on so of course it was a bit delayed.
The guy who was in charge of it passed on so of course it was a bit delayed.
If you have a 6 month delay because someone in the team leaves or dies you have MAJOR internal management issues. Losing a project manager on something like that should not cost you more than a week or two. I am sure there was a more significant problem. I hope so for Apple's sake.
Apple's North Carolina data center is expected to open this spring, and will support the iTunes and MobileMe services, the company said during its annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday,
How many annual shareholder meetings does Apple have in a year?
I wonder if this will be mentioned at the March 2 event.
That whole "2011 will be the year of?" statement suggest something big like an iTunes/Mobile Me cloud.
If you have a 6 month delay because someone in the team leaves or dies you have MAJOR internal management issues. Losing a project manager on something like that should not cost you more than a week or two. I am sure there was a more significant problem. I hope so for Apple's sake.
While I agree with you, I will play devil's advocate and say that the guy who passed away, at least to my knowledge, was the head of the entire operation, from planning to building to most everything else. I could be wrong, but it seemed like this was going to be his lasting legacy at Apple, so I'm sure there was some scrambling, albeit most likely not months worth, to try and replace not only the expertise, but the passion.