Today's Cringely column points out what I had missed about MobileMe - which Michael dismissed the other day, leading me to give a "meh" reaction as well. I think that curt dismissal might have been too quick though - consider:

There are two delightful aspects of applying the 80-20 rule in this manner. For one, the 20 percent market -- if that's all that you are aiming for -- tends not to be price-sensitive. That market is willing to pay something for elegance or convenience, but better still for elegance AND convenience. That's how Apple could charge $99 per year for .Mac and for the successor to .Mac, MobileMe. There is at least $60 in profit for Apple hiding inside that $99 price.

I've said for a long time that Apple is in the luxury market, but I hadn't applied it to things like MobileMe. Sure, GoogleApps is cheaper, and so is using various other online storage sites (like Amazon's S3). What does Apple bring to the party? Seamles integration, that's what. They bring the same thing to MobileMe that the Macbook brings to the laptop space. I can find cheaper Windows based products that have the same or better specs - but heck, I have to deal with Vista then. The same thing applies here:

If Microsoft gets only 20 percent of any market it enters, they consider that effort a failure and it would be, because Microsoft's business is scaled and its cost structure is optimized for really, really big numbers of mindless and fairly undemanding customers, most of whom wouldn't pay $99 per year.

...

Though Google has a very different approach than Microsoft does to almost every product and market segment, in this one aspect they are identical. Google, too, aims for maximal market share, which means they can't expect customers to pay and their cost structure has to be maintained such that they make a profit without being paid.

This takes me back to the subject line: know your market segment. Apple has figured out who their target is, and they go after that segment ruthlessly. This is why enterprisy types get confused by Apple: they aren't looking to fill all the checkboxes and come in at a competitive price. No, they are looking to delight the end consumer in terms of ease of use and integration with other Apple products, so that they can continue to upsell them. Heck, that's how I got hooked.

That's the key takeaway in any examination of Apple: the fact that they know exactly who they are selling to (and who they aren't selling to). Do you?

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