Image via Wikipedia

There is some speculation floating around that Apple is in the market for some space to build a nice new server farm in North Carolina.  It seems that the US state is offering the computing giant some substantial tax breaks to sweeten the deal.

There are two angles to this, 1). Apple is just looking to expand its increasing online operations, of which it has many.  I would think that just iTunes alone would use a little rack space. Or 2). With the rumours of netbook/tablet-like products in the works, Apple is looking to provide its own cloud backbone so the faithful don't need to get their hands dirty with Google's and Microsoft's offerings.

I could see Apple offering a suite of cloud App's to create an Eco system around a suite of products, just look at the example of Mobile Me.  But something about them being this late to the game just doesn't feel right.  By the time this facility is built, Microsoft will have had plenty of time to eat their lunch, so to speak.

But again, if Apple was to create a tablet PC and/or Netbook-like device, it would be just like them to create a whole backend (eg. iTunes for the iPod/iPhone) which could be the thing that is missing in making the whole ultra portable computing platform work.

Jason Remnant
..if it is broken, look for the tax break.