“Microsoft Corp.’s plans to sell a portable media player is likely to steal market share in the short term from partners iRiver, Creative and others, not iPod-creator Apple Computer Inc., experts say,” Antone Gonsalves reports for TechWeb.
“The Redmond, Wash., company on Friday said it planned to sell this year hardware and software under the brand name Zune that would compete with Apple’s iPod and iTunes. In entering the market, Microsoft has shown its displeasure with Apple’s continued dominance of the digital player market. Experts say the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker’s iPod accounts for more than two thirds of the players sold worldwide,” Gonsalves reports.
“The biggest losers initially, however, are expected to be iRiver, Creative and other device manufacturers that have failed to deliver a player using Microsoft’s media platform that can compete with the iPod,” Gonsalves reports.
Gonsalves reports, “‘If Microsoft is successful, the expectation is that it will initially hurt existing partners more than Apple,’ Joe Wilcox, analyst for JupiterResearch, said Monday. Michael Gartenberg, another JupiterResearch analyst, agreed, saying Microsoft is unlikely to find many disgruntled iPod users. ‘We certainly haven’t seen a whole lot of complaints from that quarter,’ Gartenberg said. ‘When you have such a dominant position as Apple, it usually means you’ve done something right.'”
Full article here.
Amazing. Who’da thunk Microsoft’s “partners” could actually become even bigger losers?
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No, Realist is right.
Vista . . . just think of the clarity that’s going to bring to computing.
I mean, it will make computing really . . . clear and stuff.
And Zune, it’s going to kick the iPod’s butt, because, it can . . . play music and stuff.
Hello Vista/Zune, buh bye, iPod.
“When you have such a dominant position as [Microsoft], it usually means you’ve done something right.”
That sucks for sure
When you have such a dominant position as Apple, it usually means you’ve done something right. Unless you are Microsoft.
There, now it makes sense.
Microsoft is one of the most unethical — and illegally operating — companies on the planet, IMHO. They have a history of screwing their partners. It is a part of their business plan. Why is anyone surprised that it has happened again?
It’s not Microsoft’s partners’ fault that their players could not compete with iPod. The players they produce aren’t the problem.
The problem is Microsoft’s music player software, how it interacts with the various players and how it manages ripping and burning CD’s and how it manages Microsoft’s variable DRM.
iPod just works with iTunes. The loading and manipulating tunes on competition devices is a painful process.
How did Apple achieve its dominant position in the iPod industry? By creating a better product and marketing it. How did Microsoft achieve its dominant position in the OS industry? Through illegal actions, which they went to court for, and lost. The two methods employed are as different as night and day, and no amount of simple-minded “all cars are the same!” type thinking will make them the same.
excellent opening comment harry.
and i agree (pause, while i revel in this rare occasion) with the ‘experts’ that “‘When you have such a dominant position as Apple, it usually means you’ve done something right.'”
key word, ‘usually’, as MS obviously did not follow this route…
make something good enough and it will speak for itself. no need to deliberately go out of your way to step on the other guys.
As a proud owner of two ipods (and my wife has a ipod mini) I refuse to write off Microsoft’s mp3 player as something akin to a bad joke. Microsoft has shown they can come out with half way decent hardware. Their meeces and the Xbox being just two examples.
Having made this point I can’t for the life of me understand why the hell they’d call it a Zune. I mean WTF is it meant to mean. Likewise I was talking to a marketing teacher at lunch yesterday and she said one of the unwritten rules in marketing is that as much as possible you should avoid naming a product that starts with the letter “Z”. The letter in English speaking countries tends to grate on people.
So with all of this in mind I announced Microsoft’s decision to my HRM class. When I told them they were naming it Zune there were quizzical looks on the faces of my students. Oh I forgot to mention the average age in this class is eighteen to twenty years …the target group that Microsoft is trying to tap into.
As I said at the beginning of this post I’m not writing off Microsoft before I see the complete package. But calling it Zune is a bad beginning. I mean, what drugs were they using when they came up with the name and if anyone can tell me I want some because it must have been one hell of high. (Ya know man like ah, um, let’s call it Zune because it rhymes with loon!) Bloody hell!!
I don’t think that Micro$oft is a company that can play the “if-you-can’t-do-it, i’ll-do-it-myself” card.
“I can’t for the life of me understand why the hell they’d call it a Zune”
I think it’s a play on “tune” first of all.
Secondly, I think they thought the name Zune would be all cool and make all the “kids” breathless to buy one.
Yeah, right.