Apple May Have Snapped Up iCloud.com: GigaOM

> 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. Two thoughts about this. First, as much as I HOPE Apple doesn’t name its service “i” anything, let alone “iCloud”, this would make perfect sense. The one place where Apple manages to be cheesy and unimaginative is with its names for things. After Magic Trackpad, I gave up all hope of any Apple product having a good name ever again.

Second, if I were this company, and Apple gave me $4.5 million to change my name, I wouldn’t change it to “Cloud Me.” That’s going to give you almost as big a branding issue as iCloud would have. Cloud Me is too much like Mobile Me, isn’t it? It still sounds too much like an Apple product. I can just see the president of this company, shaking hands with Steve Jobs as they sign the deal.

Steve: “So what are you going to change the name to?”

“Cloud Me,” the president says.

Steve: “Ummm, no.”

You’d think they’d change the name to something COMPLETELY un-Apple like, to avoid any sort of confusion. You’d also think that Apple would want to buy iCloud AND Cloud Me, wouldn’t you?

Maybe that was another $4.5 million. But with $65 billion in the bank, why not buy a little extra added comfort?

Or maybe Apple actually bought this whole company, not just the name? Maybe Apple’s service will be called “Cloud Me,” not “iCloud.”

I just hope we find out soon. The rumor mill is starting to eat itself.