“Microsoft Corp., chasing the speeding iPod train, will [ship] a lineup of its Zune hand-held music and video players next month,” Joseph Menn reports for The Los Angeles Times Staff.
“Analysts said the new Zunes, which Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates unveiled to reporters in Redmond, Wash., on Tuesday, might help the company hold on to its sliver of the market and perhaps gain some ground against fledgling entrants. But Microsoft wasn’t given much chance of taking customers from Apple Inc.,” Menn reports.
“‘They’re not going to gain against Apple because there is nothing really innovative about what they’re doing,’ said Van Baker, a vice president at Gartner Group,” Menn reports.
Menn reports, “Microsoft spokesman Chris Stephenson said the company was aiming for more than 10% of the part of the market where the smaller Zunes would compete, which is new territory for Microsoft. Overall, he said, ‘our goal is to be the main No. 2.'”
Menn reports, “‘It’s fine to say you want to be a credible alternative to Apple,’ Jupiter Research Vice President Michael Gartenberg said. ‘But the market isn’t looking for credible alternatives. People are looking for iPods.'”
Full article, which unfortunately confuses the iPod touch with the iPhone, here.
Dina Bass reports for Bloomberg, “Microsoft was the fourth-biggest seller of portable digital players in the first half with 3 percent of the market, compared with Apple’s 71 percent, according to NPD Group Inc. in Port Washington, New York. Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, sold 1.2 million Zunes between their November release and June, less than 3 percent of the iPod’s sales in the same time.”
“As for this Christmas, the new versions won’t help Microsoft gain significant ground on Apple, said Van Baker, an analyst with Gartner Inc. in San Jose, California. The current second-biggest competitor, SanDisk Corp., isn’t standing still either, he said… ‘Apple is a moving target,’ Baker said. ‘Every time someone says we can make a product that’s competitive with Apple, guess what, that product isn’t there anymore.'”
Full article here.
Microsoft already is, and will always be, No. 2.
I shit better products than Micro$oft produce.
Actually, Chip — thanks for playing, but — MS is #4 in portable media players and they won’t even get to #2 without a major fight.
At MS they don’t understand: “The best way to predict the future, is to invent it.”
Always runner-up.
@SanDisk
I think Chip was trying to say that MS is shit, aka #2.
Thanks for playing.
CJ
Did you hear the wireless syncing on the Zune still requires it to be connected to and AC power cord.
So, wireless syncing still requires a cord -LOL
Even with some new ideas they can’t implement it properly.
You can’t deny it, but if it wasn’t for Apple, they’d be no such thing as an MP3 players & we’d still be using beige boxes with DOS.
Ode to Microsoft
Why was it born so useless?
Why was it born at all?
It’s no fucking use to anyone.
It’s no fucking use at all.
At least the new Zunes don’t come in turd brown like the old ones.
But the part that disgusts me is that an M$ spokesperson said that they want to steal market share from their own PlaysForSure partners… basically, they’re eating their own children. Already, #2 SanDisk is pushing Rhapsody (which uses a Real DRM) over PlaysForSure, and I’ll be interested to see what #3 Creative Labs does in response to the M$ announcement.
And, of course, during all this instability in Redmond, Apple will remain king.
MDN MW: “hot”, as in “iPods will remain the hot gift this Christmas”
Judging from the the latest Zune offerings–it’s seems that MS really isn’t ‘in it to win it’. Seriously, it looks like they didn’t even try to make an attractive product. Looks like a tax write-off to me.
Actually, SanDisk— thanks for playing, but — Chip wasn’t referring to the portable media player market when he was speaking of Microsoft.
“Analysts: Microsoft’s latest Zunes show no innovation, won’t threaten Apple at all.”
Why Hell no!
Like I said yesterday, “More Zune junk doomed to fail.”
Nobody buys that crap but fools or losers.
“At least the new Zunes don’t come in turd brown like the old ones.”
Yeah, but they have one in “puke green” now!
The Zune would have died…
Except the media and MDN keep it alive with free advertising.
“Oh poor Zune, it’s the underdog against the evil Apple, lets buy one and we won’t get robbed for our iPods.”
Microsoft: Your penetration is our passion.
Did anyone see the article this morning with Ballmer quoting a 10% market share? What a joker!
Here’s Ballmer’s quote:
“We’re going up against a company that does very good work – I gotta give Apple its due,” he said. “But we went into that market and got a market share of some 10%.”
They won’t get anywhere if their goal is 2nd place. They would get more work done if they motivate they employees to make it to 1st place. Reaching 2nd places implies that the product doesn’t have to be as good as the iPod.
A month or two after launch Ballmer was saying he thought Zune had grabbed a 20% market share. At least this time he a bit nearer the right figure…
But he needs to recognize the word sold…ie not give away as freebies by Microsoft…(to be binned the nest day).
I don’t know why, but there always seems to be a market for people that just “hate” whoever . These people will pay more money for less product and be quite happy about it.
I asked my son (11th grade) what was the take in high school? He said that if don’t have an iPod, you havent got shit. His words.
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weird hah?
en
M$ doesn’t want or need to release innovative product.
They will flood the market with cheap turds that non-educated consumers will buy because of the M$ name.
And slowly, M$ will gain some ground, just enough to start introducing their incompatible standards.
How the hell did Microsoft manage to sell 1.2+ million Zunes? Are there that many people with a scheisse fetish? More importantly, how many of them were returned and not exchanged for another Zune? Seems to me that these are things which ought to be addressed.
MS standard modus operandi is:
Embrace, Exend, Extinguish
Well, here’s a case where they can’t Embrace (AAC), they can’t Extend features of the iPod since they can’t keep up with the innovation, and, ergo, no Extinguish is on any horizon…
They did not “sell” the Zunes, they moved them into the channels; i.e., a ton of those Zunes are sitting in retail inventory waiting to go the remaindered bins.
Exactly; the careful wording of Microsoft’s statement (million Zunes shipped; not sold) reveals the significant difference.
As for Ballmer’s 10% market share quote, he was referring to the marketshare of hard disk -based MP3 players selling for under $239. Since that obviously excludes all HD-based iPods (as well as a big subset of Creative product line), there is a chance in hell that one out of ten devices in that extremely narrow category was a Zune. If he tried hard, he could have narrowed it down even further and made it even bigger percentage.
The new Shit Bricks are out already?
WOW
M$$$ willing to settle for #2… THAT REALLY SAD!
iT SPEAKS VOLUMES about their marketing group… and THE GENERAL state THAT M$$$ is really in… I’ve never hear of a sales group that’s will to settle for second best…
M$$$ is truely in a downward spin… all that they have in theire future is DOOM!