As Wired reports on its web site, "Apple is giving a free 60-day extension of the service users love to hate -- well, dislike." Apparently, the MobileMe problems are still happening and Apple isn't too proud of the service, saying in a message to customers "We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe's launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around."
The launch of MobileMe resembles the failed initial launch of Windows Vista by Microsoft. Early Vista adopters dealt with poor driver software, system bugs, crashes, etc. The result was that Vista still leaves a sour taste in the mouths of many Windows users. While those problems have largely been corrected, many people still avoid the move to Vista. I suspect these extra months of free service are Apple's way to try to avoid the same kind of stigma becoming attached to MobileMe. My thinking is they're using the free service to keep people running MobileMe while they fix the problems, so that MobileMe doesn't become Apple's version of Windows Vista -- a product they want people to adopt but which burned enough people that the adoption rate is very slow.
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