Zune - Microsoft Killer or Next Apple Victim?

prophet asks: "Now that we have all seen the new Microsoft 'Zune', and the suits over at Microsoft have seen fit to inform us of a whole line of 'Zune' related hardware and software products, my real question is, will Microsoft be able to de-throne the ever growing iPod phenom? With the current confirmed 'Zune' prototype photos dispersed throughout the net, it is hard to see how Microsoft has thought that the current design of the 'Zune' is in fact enough in its current form for users to be pleased aesthetically, and at the same time impressed by ease of use. At the current moment, rumors are circulating of a redesign of the controls on Microsoft's part before a complete release. With the current aesthetical design of the Zune, will it appeal to the masses in the way the iPod did? More importantly, does it appeal to you?

who wrote that title?

[moosesocks]

Zune - Microsoft Killer or Next Apple Victim?

What, if anything, does that have to do with the content of the article?

I doubt that Zune will kill Microsoft, although it does seem like it will be largely ignored.

Apple's too entrenched in the audio-player market. Microsoft should pick a new territory to explore, and firmly establish themeslves in if they want to compete with apple.

Meh

[KU_Fletch]

When Microsoft leans to design towards waht consumers want instead of dictating to consumers what they want, they'll be able to take on the iPod. Unfortunately, to most people in their target demographic Microsoft nows stands for bad design, shoddy products, and unhip stodgyness.

Microsoft != Apple

[RLiegh]

Microsoft has spent too many years chasing after corporate/enterprise appeal, whereas apple has always worked to maintain a hipper, more artsy appeal (which is all the macs have now they're intel-based, but I digress). For that reason, apple had a better idea of what the kids want, and the kids were more receptive to the ipod than they're ever gonna be to zune whatever.

In short, MS has neither the credibility, nor understanding of what the market they're selling to wants (unless you consider "their market" to be the content industry, as opposed to consumers). It won't kill MS, but apple has no reason to loose any sleep either.

Re:Microsoft != Apple

[kfg]

. . .unless you consider "their market" to be the content industry. . .

That is exactly where Microsoft see their market.

This has nothing to do with products or services, Microsoft is waging war to be the default DRM source, to get a cut of every "media" sale from every source.

They want one big check from Time-Warner, not a godzillion little checks from those annoying consumers.

KFG

Re:Microsoft will persist

[CastrTroy]

This really is the sad state of affairs when MS releases a product. The XBox wasn't that good, and lost tons of money, and yet still they released the XBox 360, which had lots of problems too. Many people bought the XBox, because it was marketed like crazy, even though it was marginally more powerful than the GC, and cost quite a bit more. It should have cost way more, but MS was selling at a loss. This is the way MS operates. They will be able to sell quite a few units, just by marketing the crap out of it, and underpricing it, making the difference off licensing deals. Still they won't understand why they aren't doing as well as they thought, and will release another one in a couple years, making all the same mistakes they made the first time, while the real competition still makes a pretty good profit without even taking any regard to MS. MS has no ability to give users what they want. All I ever hear about with the 360 is the fact that you can play frogger, and some game called geometry wars. Do we really want to spend $400 on a system to play 20 year old games? If people are only interested in playing 20 year old games, then the Wii is going to kill this generation, because it has the entire Nintendo back catalog.

Re:Microsoft != Apple

[RLiegh]

So....Microsoft can give them security, Apple can give them paying listeners. Seems like a simple decision to me, but this is the [MP||RI]AA we're talking about.

Re:Microsoft will persist

[Jeff DeMaagd]

"do you see Microsoft exiting this market once they enter it?" Microsoft rarely concedes defeat; they just release a new version.

Microsoft is a long term company. They have been defeated at times (Bob, Ultimate TV and their internet-on-TV box are examples, they died pretty quietly) but they've managed to hold on to several markets. Their pocket OS is still around and now a strong player though in a weak market of PDAs (I think they are in more PDAs than Palm's OS), and there are a lot of Windows phones. There are definitely a lot more Microsoft-based phones than there are Apple-based or iTunes-based phones. Now, to compete against Windows phones, Apple would have to get their phone mostly right the first iteration, and the more they wait, the weaker their chances are.

Re:Meh

[thelost]

I really have to disagree with you. The people in MS target demographic (lets assume 20-30 somethings, not necessarily technically minded) most probably don't have strong feelings of love or hate for MS, talk to someone on here and you will get some strong feelings but in other places people really don't care. When was the last time most people cared whether they ate nestles or not, but some will, that some is the conscientious minority. In this case in my opinion anyone who refuses to buy it on the basis that it's an MS product will be in a minority. You can't assume that because you are disenfranchised with MS that everyone is.

Re:Microsoft != Apple

[kfg]

The combination of digital encoding and the Internet have freed the reproduction and distribution of "content." There are people who have been making a damned fine living from controling said reproduction and distribution.

You can't expect them to be happy about things. If they can't maintain a form of "natural" monopoly (given that copyright isn't actually natural) they'll take an artificial one through DRM.

What might be less obvious is that they aren't exactly thrilled with Apple's paying customers either. They aren't making much money on it and Steve is emerging as an outsider dictating terms to the industry that depends on control.

They'll be pefectly happy to play divide and conquer, playing Steve and Bill off against each other while they search for some form of DRM under the control of an industry entity, as per the DVD Forum.

Of course if any of them win you know who loses.

KFG

Good Luck...

[MBCook]

You're gonna need it.

It won't succeed. They are aiming after something that is WAY too popular and extremely well designed. To get people off the iPod, you're going to have to pass it and that will be very tough with current technology (especially batteries).

But let's talk about the BIG feature. Let's talk about something people have been wanting from the iPod for quite a while. Let's talk wireless. People say Zune will be able to buy and download music wirelessly.

It won't.

I read a report earlier today that said that was a misunderstanding and that basically the wireless functionality was to let you see what OTHER people with Zunes in the area were listening to. I read a little blurb that one of the low end MP3 player makers was looking at doing the same thing (only not using WiFi for it). Or are we supposed to surf the 'net on this thing too? Guess what, my PDA does that. So does my phone. And my DS. And my PSP. And my laptop. And that desktop over there. And...

That is a BIG difference between telling people what you're listening to and buying new music.

And I'm not surprised. To do that would require a ton of power. The WiFi on my Dell Axim X50v eats up battery life, that's why it's off unless I'm using it. You'd have to do the same thing, which would somewhat defeat the "buy music any time" idea. Plus, when downloading music (lots of data!) it would use a large amount of battery. You want wireless headphones instead? So do I! But then you have to keep bluetooth running which will use up power. Plus your wireless headphones are expensive and need batteries. Two sets of batteries to recharge and fail for the price of one!

Watch TV/Movies? The iPod does it.

Look at the proposed updates to the iPod. A touch screen? That's a little pointless (unless they make it into the new Newton).

And let's not forget the iTMS lock-in problem. The people who spend the most on iTMS are probably the ones you want most (because they will buy from you/your partners). But they are also the ones with the most to lose from abandoning the iPod. So you have to give away free music for every song that they bought. Fun logistics there. And you don't think the RIAA will let you do that for FREE do you?

Bob has $200 in iTMS music. He moves to Zune. MS gives him his music in their DRMed format. They just paid the RIAA the same "taxes" as if he spent $200 with them. Don't forget the hardware probably isn't high margin (like the iPod) and may even be close to even (so it's fancier for the $$$ compared to the iPod). You just lost money on that customer. What a way to make money!

Until DRM gets outlawed, Apple somehow screws up royally, or batteries improve enough to allow some of the features not useful now (wireless, longer movie playback)... Apple will remain on top.

Their position is just too strong (combined with MS's history) for me to think that Zune will change anything in the market any time soon.

PS: I have heard Zune will abandon "Plays For Sure" for something else. Considering MS did that, I'm sure that the successor will be supported for a LONG time. Sheesh.

PPS: Changing DRM to force everyone to buy a new player. Not something I can see Apple doing. MS might be considering it (given their market share is much lower but still...)

Victom...

[wvitXpert]

Microsoft cares about features, Apple cares about implementation. That is obvious in their software, and I'm sure it will hold true for the Zune.
Now I realize that many geeks share Microsoft's blind lust for a long feature list, but the general public wants something that works and is friendly to use. I expect that from Apple, but I'd be surprised to see the same in a Microsoft product.

Re:Microsoft != Apple

[c_fel]

That could be right, actually. But there was a time where a palm pilot was THE thing. Besides, Windows CE was a joke. But now 50% of handheld computers are running Windows.

I can't find a better analogy, and I fear that this thing is gonna work.

Re:Microsoft will persist

[CastrTroy]

The XBox wasn't even much of a gaming system. It was basically a PC, marketed as a gaming system. Which is why if you compare just numbers the XBox looks twice as good as GC, yet when you actually compare the games that run on them, XBox and GC look about the same, maybe marginally better on XBox. The XBox was large and klunky, and I know people that bought even late generation XBoxes that had problems with the CD drives dying. Let's not forget the original giant XBox controller. How that thing got out the door and into the hands of the public is beyond me. Did they not let anybody play it before it came out? What about girls and kids under 14. They would have quite a hard time using that monstrosity of a gamepad. The biggest issue I see with the 360 isn't the overheating issues (although that shouldn't be ignored) it's the fact that the only games anybody every talks about are either 20 years old, or only require a 20 year old system. After all that hub-bub about how powerful it is, people aren't even playing games that even require that kind of power. You'd be better off going to your local mall and picking up a Controller that hooks to the TV and comes with 101 Nintendo games.

Well...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

As much as I hate the iPod / iTunes / iTMS monopoly, I have come to realize:

- There is no iPod killer
- Even if there were, Zune isn't it

The iPod has what Google has - an excellent product with widespread brand recognition. Unless something else comes out that is significantly better (and, let's be honest, all of the competition to date has been lacking in the features that most users care about), the iPod will be king.

Re:Meh

[radixvir]

You obviously haven't used their hardware products like keyboards and mice. MS makes some of the best products in the business in these categories and I would buy them for use with any operating system. Whether or not their portable media player will be good or not, I do not know. I will simply buy whatever I feel works the best for the price no matter whose name is on it. If the executives don't mess with the team designing it and if they don't encumber it with WMA-only playback, then it could end up being a cool device. Time will tell

Re:Microsoft will persist

[p0tat03]

Strongly disagreed. The Xbox was a new entry into the console playing field when the arena was already largely dominated by Nintendo and Sony, and in a few short years MS has bought themselves a very significant portion of the pie. The Xbox was a fine machine, and its reliability was no worse than the PS2. The GC AFAIK was largely known to be a solid machine, but both the Xbox and PS2 experienced significant drive failures. The difference here is that PS2 drives are *still* dying, whereas late-gen Xboxes were rock solid.

"Xbox wasn't that good" is quite subjective, but even then it reeks of fanboy BS. It spawned the most profitable gaming franchise ever conceived (Halo) and had a fair number of well received exclusives. The Xbox separated the twitch gamer from the cinematic-cutscene gamers, and that's still where MS stands apart from everyone else. Nintendo's got the whole clean-party-game thing down. PS2's got your JRPG's down pat. And Xbox/360 has your FPSes and action games up the wazoo. Who will win? God knows, but one can't really claim the Xbox "wasn't that good".

Xbox is still in the red, that's for sure, but they certainly are doing "as well as they thought". We're talking about 0% market share to something around 20-25% (last time I saw numbers... which was a year ago). They took over a quarter of the console market in 5 years. Granted, they spent a lot of cash doing it, but they are certainly doing VERY well for a 5 year-old console company. Oh, and about the whole profit thing... the PS3 will be underpriced and Sony will be losing money hand over fist like MS. Nintendo's really the only one laughing to the bank here in terms of hardware profitability.

And can we stop with the BS about MS not giving users what they want? I have a 360, and just from people coming over I've got 3-4 other people who are now also buying 360's. People adore the iPod integration, the media center abilities, the integrated micropayments, the free downloadable demos, the unlocking of trial games over the network... The 360 is quite satisfying to me as the end user, and from the purchasing habits of my friends, them too. MS learned from the Xbox: the controller is simply THE best controller available for any console, period, and if the PS3 is using the Dualshock design again, it wll remain the best controller in the console field, the ugly blocky black box is now sleeker and fits better with your appliances, the internet connectivity and Live services are HUGE and nothing short of incredible... need I go on? As much as I dislike the rest of what MS pumps out, if there's anything they've ever gotten right it's the Xbox team. Is it a perfect console? Not by a long shot. But the Xbox team has proven itself to be able to isolate what their audience wants and deliver it well. This is the only reason I haven't written off the Zune, which looks really quite dumb on paper, because I have seen the Xbox team deliver a great product twice, and hopefully hat means they'll be able to do it a third time.