Time for another iTunes Music Store sales bulletin! (Yes, it really is that slow of a news day. Shoot us. Shoot us now.) Apparently Apple doesn't feel that the latest sales figures are quite nifty enough to justify yet another press release, but they aren't bad enough to cover up, either: the New York Times reports that the company has sold three million songs in its first month, a feat that the Times refers to as "impressive... considering the limited access that music fans now have to the service." By "limited access," of course, the Times means that right now only those tree-hugging hippie weirdos who use Macs can participate. It's called a "thinly-veiled dig," we believe; we hear it's all the rage on the runways in Milan this spring.

So let's take a look at the figures so far. It took Apple seven days to sell its first million songs, nine more to sell its second million, and (apparently) another fortnight to sell its third. As far as slowdowns from an initial launch go, that doesn't sound all that bad-- provided, of course, that the decline levels off and this isn't a pattern we're witnessing, here. If it is, and every third million takes twice as long to rack up, then Apple won't hit ten million until sometime in September of 2004... or twenty million until 2047. We can just see the press release for that milestone: "iTunes Music Store Tops Twenty Million Song Downloads; Cryogenically-Preserved Head of Galactic Emperor Steve Jobs Gives Thumbs-Up From Flying Car (Figuratively Speaking)."

Assuming that the decline does level out, though, it seems to us that the iTunes Music Store might actually be-- dare we say it?-- sustainably profitable, and not just a loss-leader to sell more iPods. There's also the fact that Apple originally hoped to sell just one million songs in its first month as a music vendor, so you have to figure that the record labels are pleasantly surprised by the triple-strength performance-- which may help them get over their reluctance to license music for the Windows version of the service due out by the end of the year. (Only two of the five labels have signed on so far.)

Provided that happens, and iTunes for Windows can offer the same Music Store selection available to Mac users, we figure it'll be a hit; after all, iPods are pretty darn popular among the Wintel set, we hear, so there's no reason to think that Wintellian iPodites won't switch to iTunes for Windows to take advantage of the whole integrated package. From there, it's not a massive leap to think that at least some of those Wintellians will be so impressed with Apple's handling of the music spoke on the digital hub that they'll eventually switch to a Mac to enjoy iPhoto, iMovie, and the experience of owning a computer that was actually "designed" instead of merely "assembled." And then it's just a short trip to scads of Wintel users migrating to the Mac, eventually tipping the market share scales in Apple's favor, and whammo-- a few decades later, we've got a mercurial frozen head running the galaxy. What could possibly go wrong?