Apple needs to innovate here to stay competitive. iCloud has to make it drop-dead simple to share my files, contacts, calendars and e-mail between the cloud and however many Apple devices I may work with on any given day.

Up The Ante

Even back when Apple bumped MobileMe up to 20GB of free online storage, there was grumbling that 20GB of online storage (shared between files and e-mail, no less) was too little for $99 per year. Fast forward a few years of dropping costs for storage and MobileMe is really lagging behind.

However, if Apple can raise the storage to the point where users can use their iDisk for all of the contents of their Home Directory and make iCloud into "your entire desktop on the cloud"-- especially when coupled with the kind of tight integration the company is more than capable of-- it's probably got a winner in the SOHO market.

Robert Dutt is a veteran IT journalist and blogger. He covers the Canadian IT technology solution provider scene daily at . You can also find him on .