.Mac Draws Only 100,000 Subscribers So Far,

according to this Apple press release, and the September 30th deadline for 2.5 million iTools "subscribers" to convert to .Mac is fast approaching. iTools has been free but .Mac will cost $49 for the first year for iTools subscribers. .Mac costs $99 for new subscribers.

We converted our iTools account to .Mac last month partly because we use iDisk a lot to transfer files and partly because we didn't want to lose our mac.com email address nor the convenience of mac.com webmail. The other "free" email accounts have resulted in a load of spam but not mac.com. We also use Homepages to post photos and send iCards on special occasions.

We like the .Mac application Backup which simply and easily backs up our Mail, Address Book, iCal, Keychain and daily web site files to a CD. We have the included Virex 7 installed and keep its DAT file up to date even though Mac viruses are rare beasts.

But we wonder about Apple's count of .Mac subscribers. We have gone from five iTools subscribers to one full .Mac subscriber and four email-only subscribers. Is that one or five .Mac subscribers by Apple's count? It is not clear in Apple's release but if the email-only subscribers are counted, then .Mac is really flagging.