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Apple Purchases iCloud.com for $4.5 Million?

Wednesday April 27, 2011 10:16 pm PDT by Eric Slivka

GigaOM reports that it has received word that Apple has purchased the iCloud.com domain name for a sum of $4.5 million. The domain had been used until recently by an online storage firm of the same, but the company recently rebranded its service as CloudMe.

My source, who is familiar with the company, says that Xcerion has sold the domain to Apple for about $4.5 million. Xcerion hasn't responded to my queries as yet. At the time of writing, the Whois database showed Xcerion as the owner of iCloud.

For the time being, iCloud.com redirects visitors to CloudMe.com, but presumably Apple will take over the domain when needed if the claim is in fact true.

We had received a heads-up about the iCloud-to-CloudMe rebranding last week, but were unable to dig up any information specifically linking the change to a purchase by Apple at that time. Obviously, specific rumors of Apple acquiring the domain with a specific purchase price lend credence to the original speculation, but we'll still be watching for the domain to officially change hands, presumably to MarkMonitor, the brand management firm that handles Apple's domain registrations (along with those of many other high-profile companies).

Apple of course is said to have completed work on a new cloud-based storage system for media, and appears to be in the final stages of securing deals with record labels before launching the service.

Tag: gigaom.com
[ 99 comments ]


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JGowan
101 months ago
Best investment of $13 ever.
Rating: 6 Votes
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scotty321
101 months ago
Apple should have just bought Dropbox and been done with it. Dropbox has them beat in just about every cloud way possible.
Rating: 5 Votes
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satkin2
101 months ago



Hats off to Apple, they came up with a name almost as bad as Mobile Me. I did not think they had it in them.


I refer you to Ping
Rating: 5 Votes
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SirHaakon
101 months ago

Best investment of $13 ever.

Understatement of the year.

You can work your whole life and never make 4.5 million dollars, or just casually buy a domain name and let Apple set you up for life. What a crazy world this is.
Rating: 4 Votes
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Icaras
101 months ago



Hats off to Apple, they came up with a name almost as bad as Mobile Me. I did not think they had it in them.


Sorry buddy but I disagree.

Again.

Thank god you don't work for Apple. :rolleyes:
Rating: 3 Votes
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Macinthetosh
101 months ago
It's about time to put that server farm to good use. Also, this is a better domain name than "me.com." I don't really like the idea of having an "@me.com" email address, so I always give out my "@mac.com" address.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Stevesbodyguard
101 months ago
And yet again here is more evidence that I need to start buying domain names and selling them to companies...I think I will call the next one ifriend.com and when apple releases a virtual friend in 2020 I will be RICH!!!:cool:
Rating: 2 Votes
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theBigD23
101 months ago
Why are people surprised that Apple uses i in their names? They use it for almost everything.
Rating: 1 Votes
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rorschach
101 months ago

You don't want to hear the word Drive in a name. That just brings the memory of local storage even though it's called "Cloud" Drive.

Personally iCloud is simple to the point name that everyone can remember and knowingly see the site being an Apple site.

Even though it's not a clever name Apple like to keep it simple and to the point.

Apple is about that simple minded look, name, and feel with the technical stuff behind the scenes.


Agree with this. People will call it that anyway. I can't tell you how many people I know who call either the retail Apple Stores or the iTunes Store "The iStore." If Apple had called the iPad something like "Slate" people would have just called it "the iSlate" or "the iTablet."
Rating: 1 Votes
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RawBert
101 months ago
I hope Apple announces their plans soon. :)
Rating: 1 Votes

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