During the annual shareholders meeting yesterday, Apple [AAPL] was asked about the datacenter being built in Norch Carolina. In response, Apple said that the new datacenter was to be used for both iTunes and MobileMe services.
This new datacenter, that opens within days, will start offering services for iTunes/MobileMe sometime later this year. Apple also commented that this is the second datacenter that they own with the other one being in Newark, California.
In comparison of price and size, the Newark DC was purchased from MCI WorldCom in 2006 for $50 Million. It is 107,000 square feet in size. This new datacenter is costing $1Bn to build and is 500,000 square feet in size which will add a lot of capacity to the iTunes and MobileMe service.
We also hear rumors that Apple will double the 500,000 to 1M square feet in the future.
Although we don’t know exactly when Apple will start pushing out iTunes and MobileMe services from this particular datacenter, we expect we might hear an announcement next week when the iPad 2 launch happens.
Via: Apple Insider
That is one gigantic data center. And with another phase planned in the future to make it a million square feet is insane. Hey I guess they need it, they are a growing company. I remember when Apple was nothing compared to PC. Oh how the tables have turned.