Enderle: Microsoft Zune ‘a design mistake’

20 years ago

“The launch of Zune pitches Microsoft into direct competition with Apple but few think that, initially, it will have the clout to upset the dominance of iTunes and the iPod,” Mark Ward reports for BBC News.

“At launch Microsoft will only be offering one Zune player – a 30GB model with a 7.6cm colour screen and FM radio that comes in black, white or brown. Also at launch the Zune service will only offer music and associated art. Movies and TV shows will come later,” Ward reports. “‘They put a big screen designed for movies, but there are no movies for it,’ said analyst Rob Enderle. ‘That is a design mistake.'”

“Built in to every Zune device is a wireless music sharing system. The short range data swapping system lets Zune owners beam tracks, playlists and images to other Zune players nearby,” Ward reports. “Tracks shared in this way can be listened to three times or kept for three days before they disappear. This ability to share is at the heart of Microsoft’s ambitions for the player and the way it hopes to differentiate itself from what it dubs the ‘closed’ world of Apple’s iTunes.”

Full article here.
Microsoft has made their usual mistake. They looked around for something to differentiate themselves from Apple and hit upon “sharing.” That doesn’t mean it’s a desired feature by consumers. Ask yourself how many times you wished you could beam a song to a friend. Probably a few times, right? An odd time here or there for most, right? It gets worse. Now ask yourself how many times you wished you could beam a song to a friend that they could only listen to three times or keep for three days before it disappeared from their iPod. Never, right? Typical Microsoft: they do it because its possible – technology for technology’s sake – not because it’s a particularly useful feature and then they don’t do it very well at all. How do real humans share? It’s called “iPod jacking” and it’s decidedly less techno, but done far more often: you unplug your headphones from your iPod and plug into your friend’s iPod to hear the song. Done. Sharing accomplished. Now get off my iPod!

For this reason, and many others, Microsoft Zune will fail because Microsoft, as is their modus operandi, doesn’t know and/or care what the customer wants or what features would be good for the use.