Google’s free Gmail service threatens to make Apple’s .Mac suite of Internet services obsolete, Alex Salkever writes in his latest Byte of the Apple column for BusinessWeek Online. Though .Mac, which costs US$99 per year, offers more than e-mail, Gmail “makes a big chunk of that stuff somewhat irrelevant or redundant,” he adds. To overcome this, Salkever thinks Apple should contract with Google to get Apple-branded Gmail. “Google already offers a handful of search and online ad-placement services to third parties, including Time Warner subsidiary America Online and Baby Bell SBC,” he explains.