Perhaps even bigger news than the new 3G iPhone (which of course, I’ll be updating to, as soon as it releases) was Steve Job’s announcement of the much-improved online productivity suite, formerly called .Mac.

The revamped service, now called MobileMe, offers web versions of Apple’s email, calendar, address book, photo album and remote disk programs. Now, folks everywhere can begin to use Apple’s gorgeous applications, with having to switch to Mac, or even buy a new computer! This is simply ingenious.

Of course, if you already own a Mac, then you’ll be instantly familiar with the look and behavior of the online versions of these applications, because they are simply web versions of the exact same software you’ve been enjoying on your Mac—plus a few extra goodies thrown in.  AJAX goodness makes the programs function more like desktop applications than web sites, including drag-and-drop functionality.

Push email. Push contacts. Push calendar.
MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars on an online server — or “cloud” — and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Your changes happen automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it or remember to do anything — such as docking your iPhone or syncing manually — to stay up to date.

With this functionality, along with embedded sharing capabilities, the iPhone/MobileMe marriage offers up a serious challenge to the antiquated Microsoft Exchange Server business solution. Goodbye, ridiculous licensing fees, specialized IT personnel and decade-old user interfaces! Hello, gorgeous, intuitive, web-based applications that don’t require a dedicated IT department!

MobileMe will cost $99/year when it launches, but I’d highly recommend the Family Pack, which costs $149/year, and features five licenses. Share the other four with friends and family and the cost per year drops to $30 per person, which is a great price for this productivity suite.

UPDATED! I just found out that you can buy .Mac right now from Amazon for just $69.99, and still get upgraded for FREE when MobileMe launches! Save $29.96 and get MobileMe… what a deal!

Click here to check out .Mac on Amazon for $69.99!

Or click here for the Family Pack for just $124.49!

I anticipate MobileMe will turn out to be one of Apple’s best strategies to date, and will be even bigger than the iPhone itself! Welcome to Mac, PC users everywhere!