But behind these headlines are other success stories. Apple's website, revitalized with the addition of its e-commerce Mac store last fall, has grown beyond the expectations of its builders. Site traffic is reaching the heady levels of the Web portal contenders, according to Apple officials. And while much of this eyeball share is turning into direct Apple sales dollars, the site is also growing as a home base for Macintosh software and content developers.
Director of Internet Communications Dan Marusich heads up the company's Web efforts. He says the Apple.com site will keep evolving, but won't try to follow Web fashion by leveraging the traffic into an ad-supported portal site. Apple has regained its focus, he says, and this isn't a time to change it online.
Marusich talked about Apple's evolving Internet strategy, and about why Apple.com won't follow Microsoft down the portal road.
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Job
What He Does
Apple Store Stats
Opened: November 10, 1997
Traffic: 10+ million hits per day on Apple.com domain
Sales: "Regularly $3 million a day."
Branch offices: Education site, sites targeting European and Japanese sales.
Director of Internet Communications, Apple Computer
Responsible for Apple's Web store, content on apple.com site