“Microsoft Corp. is considering new distribution models for its Zune media device, including offering it at next-to-no cost alongside subscription plans,” John Letzing reports for MarketWatch.
MacDailyNews Take: Please see our headline. Oh, by the way, “free with subscription” does not equal “free.” You usually end up paying more over time and the day you decide to stop paying for the subscription, you own nothing.
Letzing continues, “Microsoft’s Zune marketing director, Jason Reindorp, first publicly aired the idea of offering the Zune like a subsidized cellphone in an interview with PC World magazine. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed that ‘Microsoft is exploring lots of ideas, and this is just one of them.’ The Zune was first released to consumers late last year. As a potential competitor to Apple Inc.’s popular iPod, the Zune is a high profile endeavor for Microsoft.”
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s Zune is a joke. It’s amazing Microsoft continues to get coverage for this failure and that certain media outlets continue treat it as “news” that Microsoft is “considering” this and/or that for Zune. Perhaps they’re covering it for their own amusement. If so, we’re all for it; we like a running joke as much as anyone and this one certainly has potential, since nobody outside of governments can finance a fiasco for longer than Microsoft. SanDisk, the distant number two to Apple’s iPod juggernaut, must get sick every time they see another Zune article.
Letzing continues, “The spokesman said that Microsoft first considered the cellphone-like distribution plan after seeing interest in its Zune Pass subscription service, which offers monthly paid access to songs on the Zune Marketplace, a competitor to Apple’s iTunes store. Though he declined to say how many subscribers currently use Zune Pass, the spokesman said subscriptions rose 65% during January.”
MacDailyNews Take: As we often point out, statistics can be used to infer reality or fantasy. Add 7 Zune subscribers in January to 11 in December and, presto, 65%! (Rounded up to the nearest 5%, of course.)
Letzing continues, “The spokesman said a subsidized Zune is only one of a series of ‘wild ideas’ being considered by the company’s entertainment and devices division to help the Zune better compete directly with Apple’s iPhone, a combination cellphone and iPod that is expected to be released in June.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe Architect” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: To describe Apple’s iPhone as merely “a combination cellphone and iPod” is only slightly less ridiculous than pretending that some future Zune can compete directly with it. Microsoft can’t even get Windows Vista to run well on a modern laptop, so how are they going to pack their bloated, derivative morass of spaghetti code into a Zune to “directly compete” with Apple’s iPhone (which is actually a handheld Mac OS X-based computer with a multi-touch UI)?
Related articles:
Microsoft: DRM-free music in Zune’s future – April 05, 2007
Microsoft paints Zune pink in desperate bid to increase anemic sales – March 22, 2007
Buh-bye: Senior Zune exec exits Microsoft – January 31, 2007
Last quarter: Microsoft lost $289 million on Zune, CE devices – January 26, 2007
NPD: Apple iPod held 72% share of PMP market in December; Microsoft Zune had 2.8% share – January 21, 2007
RealMoney’s Comeau predicts: ‘Microsoft will kill the first Zune media player by midyear’ – December 16, 2006
Zune: Welcome to the social isolation – December 11, 2006
Thurrott reviews Microsoft Zune: ‘a joke, a travesty, I can’t imagine what they were thinking’ – November 28, 2006
Ihnatko: Microsoft Zune experience about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face – November 24, 2006
TheStreet.com: It’s not looking good for Microsoft’s Zune; bad press may taint brand for years – November 24, 2006
Microsoft’s Zune selling like snotcakes – November 15, 2006
Engadget: Microsoft’s Zune software: ‘It sucks’ – November 13, 2006
BusinessWeek: ‘By this time next year, Microsoft’s Zune will be considered a dismal failure’ – November 10, 2006
Forbes: Microsoft’s Zune stinks; like ‘Microsoft Bob,’ only more embarrassing – November 09, 2006
Thurrott on Microsoft’s Zune: ‘The makings of a disaster, what the heck are these people thinking?’ – September 29, 2006
Apple iPhone wannabes don’t even come close to what Apple has built – April 05, 2007
Why iPhone could be more than worth Apple’s price – April 03, 2007
Wired: Apple iPhone has wireless industry scrambling – March 30, 2007
Report: AT&T Wireless says Apple iPhone release date June 11 – March 30, 2007
Apple iPhone steals CTIA Wireless 2007 show; FCC chairman wouldn’t give it back – March 27, 2007
AT&T has received 1 million Apple iPhone inquiries so far – March 27, 2007
Apple’s iPhone ‘preverberations’ rock cell phone industry – March 26, 2007
Sony CEO Stringer talks Apple iPhone: ‘I wouldn’t bet against Steve Jobs’ – March 17, 2007
The Beeb tries to equate ‘smartphones’ with Apple’s iPhone – March 16, 2007
Cellphone users set their sights on Apple’s iPhone; look to get out of existing contracts – March 15, 2007
Getting ready for Apple iPhone: How to get out of your 2-year cellphone contract – March 13, 2007
Wired’s Mortensen: Apple is under-selling iPhone with their 10 million figure – March 13, 2007
Apple’s marketing machine does it again: iPhone generates $400 million in free publicity – March 10, 2007
Analyst: Apple’s iPhone has Palm ‘shaking in their sandals’ – March 09, 2007
Which company is most at risk from Apple’s looming iPhone onslaught? – March 04, 2007
Morgan Stanley reiterates Apple ‘buy’ – says market is underestimating iPhone demand – March 01, 2007
Apple’s 10 million iPhone sales target for 2008 would surpass most other smart phone sales – March 01, 2007
Apple COO Tim Cook: iPhone is a revolutionary product; you get what you pay for – February 28, 2007
Apple COO Tim Cook: iPhone on track for June launch – February 27, 2007
Goldman Sachs: 4 reasons to be bullish on Apple’s iPhone – February 26, 2007
Apple airs iPhone teaser ad during Oscars – February 25, 2007
Apple preps 3G iPhone model for Europe – February 25, 2007
The once-mighty Palm Inc. doomed to decline and failure – thanks to Apple’s iPhone – February 23, 2007
Palm CEO can’t stop talking about Apple iPhone – February 19, 2007
How Steve Jobs played hardball in iPhone deal with AT&T (Cingular) – February 17, 2007
Digit takes a closer look at Apple’s iPhone – February 14, 2007
Microsoft caught off-guard, beaten badly by Apple’s iPhone innovations – February 13, 2007
Apple’s soon-to-be iPhone rivals sound just like iPod rivals circa 2001 – February 01, 2007
How Verizon blew the Apple iPhone deal – January 29, 2007
O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile battle for exclusive rights to Apple iPhone in UK – January 26, 2007
Rogers to offer Apple iPhone exclusively in Canada – January 25, 2007
Research in Motion downgraded due to Apple iPhone competition – January 23, 2007
Ihnatko: Hands-on with Apple’s iPhone (which runs Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) – January 18, 2007
Microsoft CEO Ballmer laughs at Apple iPhone – January 17, 2007
RealMoney: Apple just blew up the whole damn mobile-phone supply chain with its new iPhone – January 11, 2007
eWeek: Apple iPhone fallout: ‘They must be crying in Nokia-ville and other telephony towns today’ – January 10, 2007
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Time: ‘iPhone could crush cell phone market pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority’ – January 09, 2007
Analyst: Apple iPhone should be given its own category – ‘brilliantphone’ – January 09, 2007
Apple debuts iPhone: touchscreen mobile phone + widescreen iPod + Internet communicator – January 09, 2007
If Microsoft does start giving away Zunes, does anyone think that they’ll also drop DRM? I doubt they will do both.
Thank Goodness I can’t read…
I think the Zune battle will get interesting, but with the M$ “partners.” Now that free-AAC is available to everyone, at least for EMI, M$ holds even less cards with them.
Dirty AND nerdy! Gotta’ love it.
I don’t think we have to worry about microsuck giving away zunes because no one will take them. They will have to throw them away if they want to get rid of them.
I got a Zune for my birthday and it’s honestly an okay player. It’s not an iPod — what I really wanted — but it was free. I just wish that it would connect with my Mac. I have to use a buddy’s PC (which sucks). I also wish I could find someone to squirt a song to. Thank goodness there are DRM-less songs on the way…!
In the end, the Zune will defeat the iPod.
Can your player squirt?
Brian:
Why don’t you install Parallels or Bootcamp so you can sync it yourself?
Glad it’s an ok player, and it’s too bad you didn’t get an iPod, but something is better than nothing.
Hope you find a Zune you can squirt to soon….
1. Zune subscriptions grew in January 65% because all 16 Zunes sold in December for Christmas and given away at Microsoft office parties, those people subscribed in January. This is exactly like iTunes gift card use. It means nothing to how Zunes are selling, which is trending even blow poor.
2. Going the cell phone game is a huge mistake – thus I hope Redmond holeheartedly embraces it. What it does to the product is completely devalues the device. The device is what is largely cool about MP3 devices. It devalues the product, people will get the tricky hook
3. EMI and Apple’s partnership just pushed Redmond’s plans into fast forward. Redmond hates non-DRM anything, and Bill is not in favor of it, and Jason’s latest lip service is meere pandering to the media to get the word out that Zune is great and will be everything iTunes and iPod are. Can you say scrambling.
Overall, Zune marketing believes if they hit “good enough” on many of iTunes features and iPods abilities, plus throw in a few other wrinkles, market like crazy and Zune will win.
What is this 1950?!
Redmond does not get the Purple Cow, nor do they understand the post-TV generation we are in. They are clueless on just so many levels.
It’s really fun to watch isn’t it.
Validates Jobs’ comment about how “they give away cell phones because that’s what their worth – nothing.”
Subsciption online music service is the very lowest of the market for Microsoft to go here with free Zune’s after what they did for Plays4Sure and the industry goes to show they completely and uttlerly fumbled the ball, tripped over their own shoelaces and smacked their head on the goal post.
I think its funny how all these zune lovers think zune is going to somehow outsell the ipod. I know when the zune first came out it had an end cap dedicated to it at all the target stores and a part of a case dedicated to it at walmart while ipod still was the end cap holder.
Now our closest target has moved the zune display to the isle and the only thing that says zune on it is a little cardboard thing about a foot long and maybe a couple inches high and there are 2 zunes sitting on a black raised plastic platform one showing some video demo thing the other one nothing just a fake display of the main menu. Above the zunes is a big sign saying ipod and tons of ipod stuff and then 2 racks have some zune cases on them.
At some of the other targets here in town they dont even have zunes on display anymore just in the glass case and there are 2 rows of zunes and 1 rack of zune cases and thats it. Nothing advertising them infact i had to look twice before i saw them. If you were not trying to find them and didnt know they were there youd never see them.
Wal mart has even stopped selling allot of the zune extras compared to what they did have up for sale. Its so funny that ms kept saying the ipod killer when they released this but now look at it zune has shrunk to non existence and the ipods are all over the place. Some of the Targets here only sell ipods, and a couple creative zen players and then they have the zunes but even the creative players are at eye level and have more visability then the zunes.
SOME IPOD KILLER the zune turned out to be !! Apple is laughing al the way to the bank
I’m holding out for Microsoft to pay me to own a Zune. I need a new door stop for my shed and Zune would certainly fill the bill.
Give away something for free and take over the market…Give away something for free and take over the market…Give away something for free and take over the market…
Now where have we heard that before…Oh yeah, now I remember!
That’s how MS beat Netscape.
Can’t MS think of anything new?
Rhetorical question.
We all know the answer.
> “The spokesman said a subsidized Zune is only one of a series of ‘wild ideas’ being considered by the company’s entertainment and devices division to help the Zune better compete directly with Apple’s iPhone>
Send zunes to the terrorists, they won’t stop a bullet, but hey could use it in their left hand to wipe. I believe they still do that in the Middle East. It is brown, so it would match perfectly.
MW-just, as in, just a ‘wild idea’.
hey, SB they.
What’s next, Ballmer threatening to throw a chair at you unless you pick the subsidized Zune over an iPod? ;P
MW is “image”, as in the image of Ballmer sticking out his tongue.
Another ‘wild idea’ they are throwing around is pink.
If pink is for the ladies, what is brown for?
Brian
You should have been nicer to your stepmother when you were a kid
Many thanks for the valuable information.
Thanks again for your time!
VOB to iPod
http://www.vob-converter.com
“MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s Zune is a joke. It’s amazing Microsoft continues to get coverage for this failure and that certain media outlets continue treat it as “news” that Microsoft is “considering” this and/or that for Zune.”
Why does MDN still mention this then ? Ooh, I forgot MDN is pretty much about MS bashing, not media coverage.
This is why they should force M$ to close it’s doors:
1. They have so much money, they can afford to lose on hardware, as bad as Zune is, free is always free and a lot of people would go for it, I wouldn’t but there are people who put price ahead. I see it as a risk, Apple will not be able to compete.
2. Instead of focusing on one thing, like their OS, M$ is creating more and more failures. Do one thing right.
@Spiderman
The link you provide results in an EXE file
Since this is a Mac-news site. you wouldnt happen to have
anything for Macs — would ya ?
Microsoft giving away something for no cost and subsidizing it with their huge cash reserves?
WOW, that really is a wild idea! Maybe they should try that with the XBox…
@Who Cares,
“Ooh, I forgot MDN is pretty much about MS bashing, not media coverage.”
Yeah, so. Who cares? Only you apparently.
Zune Pass is actually a roaring success – just about everyone has passed on Zune!
Micro$oft, on fourth down, common sense says “PUNT”.
I am really glad that HP iPod saved that soldiers life, but I think
soldiers should have a Zune filled flack jacket instead of wasting those precious iPods…it would finally give the Zune a viable purpose. Then again, would you trust the Zune’s cheap innards to deflect a bullet?