“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
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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
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Apple’s soon-to-be iPhone rivals sound just like iPod rivals circa 2001 – February 01, 2007
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Late last evening, Gates and Ballmer got rustled up in a corral-type enclosure ….surrounded by several midsize individuals each tattooed with a PlaysForSure logo across the neck and teardrop under one eye. They said they escaped by pitching pink Zunes at the groups feet, quickly changing into blue jeans and black turtleneck and being mistaken for something genuine. They said it was a technique they employed many times in the past. They wanted to welcome everyone to the Social.
THIS JUST IN:
A man was trampled to death today on a sidewalk
by a mob while he was trying to give away a number of
Microsoft Zune media players. Apparantly the group was
attempting to get past him to receive free condoms from
another individual farther down the street.
I passed a zune last night. Actually, I passed a couple of ’em.
apparently
“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”
Microsoft doesn’t understand that people are buying DAP’s in order to carry around the music that they already own (CD’s), not in order to subscribe to music. This will appeal to a VERY limited audience and most of this audience will be served by similar deals from cellphone operators.
MS pushes subscriptions for the same reason cable companies do: It’s a nice, steady revenue stream that requires little in terms of quality to sustain it.
Got customers locked into a contract? Great! Bring on the Milli Vanilli!!! Who cares? They’re gonna pay us anyway!
Music fans have proven this time and time again: NO ONE WANTS A SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE. They want to own their music. Why? Because a song is not a magazine.
You read a magazine once, and then you’re done with it. You toss it, or you bring it to your dentist’s office and leave it there. You might hold on to it for a particular article, but it has no emotional value. You don’t read it in 5 years and fondly remember where you were when you first read it. It doesn’t bring back memories of your first kiss, your first car, a summer evening with someone you love…
Music does. And that’s why people want to own it, and call it up any time they like without a lot of technology getting between them and that emotional connection.
So go ahead, give away Zunes with your super new B-2-B model, and impress your partners with your great new revenue-stream ideas. I’ll sit back, yet again, and laugh as the whole thing falls on its face. You just don’t listen.
That, young Jedi… that is why you fail.
-c
MW: ‘comes’ (in pink, brown, and i-dont-give-a-fsck)
I’ve yet to see a Zune. On a recent flight the iPods were everywhere while one guy next to me had a Creative Zen paperweight. Man it was huge! I just can’t imagine….
Chrissy, I think I’m falling in love with you.
Taken. >.<
Thanks for cleaning up my potty mouth, MDN. ;P
-c
MW: ‘art’ (for art’s sake)
Regarding subscriptions, where people can listen to and expose themselves to lots of new music, threre’s a free way to do that. It’s called radio. Sure, you can’t search for and find that one song that grabs you, and play it over and over again on radio. That’s what the iTunes Store is for. Just .99 (soon to be 1.29) and it’s yours. Beauty, eh?
If they give them away for free, maybe I will use them to play fetch with my rottweiler.
Soon enough, we’ll see Microsoft try to adopt the Atari strategy. Some of us remember how piles of unsold game cartridges were unceremoniously dumped in a landfill. The inventory was written off for tax purposes. But for environmental reasons I don’t think they could pull that off today. It would, however, be a poetic end for the Zune – of whatever color – to end up as so much waste.
Let’s see- a “free” Zune or a root canal. I gotta go with the root canal.
A Zune is not even on the same planet as iPhone, let alone an iPod. I can’t believe some analyst would put the Zune and iPhoen as competitors. That’s like saying I’m choosing between a tricycle and BMW for my next vehicle.
@Rob
“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.”
I wouldn’t either, because “free” crap is still crap.
“2. Instead of focusing on one thing, like their OS, M$ is creating more and more failures. Do one thing right.”
It seems like they are doing one thing right…
Failing
I imagine if they offered a Zune free inside of every packet of Kellogs Cornflakes, sales of Kellogs Cornflakes would nose-dive…
You folks are missing a hugh part of this article.
With the EMI/Apple DRM-less deal, Microsoft has no choice but to figure out a different way to sell Zunes and market their . When all of the other online music stores start selling DRM free songs and Zune owners find out that their little brick adds DRM back onto their songs, they will not be happy.
A subscription model is about the only way Microsoft can keep the Zune a(debatable) viable product and try not to let Zune users find out how Micrsoft screwed them.
When the other music labels make DRM-less deals with Apple and other online sellers, Microsoft’s whole strategy with the Zune is doomed.
It was doomed long ago, long before the Zune was released. It was doomed the day that Napster was re-launched as a subscription plan. DRM and subscriptions go hand in hand, they need each other to work and be relevant, but, unsurprisingly, people aren’t going for them.
-c
MW: ‘returned’ (merchandise authorization)
TripleHead: When all of the other online music stores start selling DRM free songs and Zune owners find out that their little brick adds DRM back onto their songs, they will not be happy.
Couldn’t MS just do a firmware/software update and remove all the DRM-adding programming?
Brian,
STFU!! you re a fukn plant if i ever saw one. if youre not, STFU! youre a noob and that is worse than a plant…you total noob who gets a crappy zune while they own apple computer hardware?
pwnt!!
freak….loser freak..
im so getting bored of this site…its all about microsuck bashing anymore..as fun as that is it doesnt encompass my life liek the tards runnin this dump. how bout you guys choose NOT to report something stupid? oh wait that would take thought nm…
@?what
Whatever you’re on I most definitely do not want any. Your attidutude is boorish, foul and unwanted on this site. Take yourself with your aggressive attitudes and go somewhere else. This site is about discourse and Brian got a Zune for a birthday present and he wanted an ipod, so what. And what do you do flame him! So what he should’ve done is turn around and insult the giver by insulting them? Gimme a break!
Brian, my heart goes out to you. OK so the ipod is the standard and you got a Zune. Make the best out it, make sure you load AAC or mp3 onto the Zune and save up your pennies for a refurbished ipod. Oh, and ignore low types like ?what he’s got alchol and drug issues that he’s dealing with. He’s had a hard time dealing with these problems and we all have to be patient with him.