Andy McCue (silicon.com) spoke with Microsoft’s UK Media Director Gordon Frazer about Microsoft’s Zune, among other things. About Zune, Frazer explained:
At this stage we have no firm plans to launch anywhere else globally. Does this mean we’ll launch in the UK? I can’t tell you when [it will launch] for sure and I can’t even necessarily tell you if. We’re going to see how this goes in the US and what lessons we learn and see if we get that right, and then make the right decision for the UK. But right now that decision hasn’t been made, so the launch will only be in the US.
Today certainly Apple is the market leader, I don’t think anybody is questioning that and they are out ahead in a lot of ways. They deserve the credit they get, they’ve built up a large installed base, they continue to be the market leader. But we think there are things that can be done better. One of the big trends, broadly, not just in music, is around social networking and the ability for people to exchange and share information, ideas, music and experiences. It’s a new business for us and we’re enthusiastic about it. We’ll see where it goes.
Full article here.
This is the first semi-intelligent thing we’ve seen from Microsoft regarding their brown squirter: they make it easier on themselves financially and logistically to cut and run (à la PlaysForSure) once they figure out that Zune’s a failure, too.
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