Daniel Eran Dilger compares the Flash-based Microsoft Zune 8 with the identically-priced Apple iPod nano 8GB in an in-depth report.
Dilger recaps last year’s round one, which left Microsoft lying on the canvas bloodied and battered, “Very few Zunes were actually sold over the last year. Microsoft shipped 1.2 million units to stores over the first eight months, while Apple actually sold over 40 million iPods to customers in the same period. Since June, Microsoft’s retail partners have been working to sell those first million Zunes to consumers at fire sale prices as low as $80. Apple has subsequently sold another ten million iPods, and is on track to sell another 25 million more this winter.”
Dilger conducts an extensive review of iPod nano and Zune hardware, accompanying software, available online stores, and more, and finds, “The Zune is a bad product that deserves to fail. If it does, perhaps Microsoft will get serious about delivering a high quality, competitively priced product next year and introduce it with software that’s a real match for iTunes, not just a sloppy placeholder. In the meantime, perhaps Microsoft will drop the facade of its Zune brand masquerading as a counterculture art brand, because there really isn’t anything counterculture about financing an astroturf campaign in a bid to acquire monopoly control of media playback.”
Full article here.
another great article
“masquerading as a counterculture art brand”
Well, it DOES run counter to culture….
Culture:”the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively : 20th century popular culture.”
One of Daniel’s great lines in his article: (telling about struggling thru zune’s installation)
“Selecting a custom setup presents another wizard process that leads you thorough pages of a paisley printed interface that manages to violate all human interface ideas conceived to date…”
Although Maybe Microsoft wants to Control All Media Playback.
Would you say Apple wants to do this as well?
what happened to Zunetang??? i guess he finally realized what the numbers are showing, the fast death of the zune.
Not according to Amazon reviews.
astroturf….
MDN: What is it with you continually reporting these Zune reviews? Do you really need constant reassurance of the superiority of the iPod?
An Astroturd!
Now THAT’S what I call journalism.
About the ONLY informed and sensible review I have read.
Who DO Microsft bother? They are an abomination from start to finish, top to bottom.
“Do you really need constant reassurance of the superiority of the iPod?”
New here?
I love the word “trounces”. I so rarely get to use it in a sentence.
Since June, Microsoft’s retail partners have been working to sell those first million Zunes to consumers at fire sale prices as low as $80.
That’s at or even below cost. This would explain why it’s one of the top selling on amazon right now.
Microsoft is dumping the Zune on the market, figuring because it’s cheap enough people will settle for mediocre, like they did Windows.
Wow what an article/review. I love the comments below. Why does MS bother doing this at all? Screwing their partners with PlayFerShure, and taking on the iPod? You know in the end, the sad thing is they may win. With unlimited revenue guaranteed by their continued monopoly, they can afford to waste millions and millions on this till they catch up or flood the market with Zunes. I’m sure they’ll eventually catch up with hardware parity and software, and continue to lose money till then. I think thats just a disgusting way to win a market.
“I love the word “trounces”. I so rarely get to use it in a sentence.”
Great word. I certainly wouldn’t say it’s use was floccinaucinihilipilification.
Analysts are typically off base and incorrect. This, many of us know.
But: “…Any random blue-vested circus freak trying to push Dells onto the mouthbreathers in Wal-Mart could have told us as much, thanks.”
Yeah… thats not condecending.
More fuel for the cliche that Mac fans are elitists.
MDN is reporting this because it is Apple-related news – Apple’s most dangerous competitor in a market has failed to achieve 5% of that market … even at fire-sale pricing.
Zune Tang is looking for something witty to say, something that will amuse and outrage us. Unfortunately, he has a life outside MDN.
Apple could not have started this “war” with any real expectation of winning a Windows-like share of the market, though I’m sure they believed they could become one of the major players.
MAYBE, just maybe, Microsoft will get serious for round three (or four) and produce something that would have been competitive in 2006 or even the first half of 2007. So far they haven’t offered much of a challenge to the 2005 iPod line.
Dave
@ ChrisM,
WalMart sells Dells.
WalMart is an equal opportunity employer who employs many handicapped people.
If you want to see what a mouth-breather looks like, go to WalMart on a payday.
The only thing wrong with the statement is ‘trying to push’. No one at WalMart pushes sales. They greet customers, stock shelves and man cash registers but they do not push sales.
“But: “…Any random blue-vested circus freak trying to push Dells onto the mouthbreathers in Wal-Mart could have told us as much, thanks.”
Yeah… thats not condecending.
More fuel for the cliche that Mac fans are elitists.”
i am sorry but feeling you are superior to wal-mart shoppers or employees is not elitist. hell all you have to be to stand a step above that is human. the majority of people are above that…
To shen:
Thanks. It was sesquipedalian but certainly not intended to be lexiphanic.
(You can also control-click a word to get a contextual menu pop-up for a Spotlight, Google or Dictionary search and a few other options.)
floc-cin-au-cin-i-
hil-ip-il-if-i-ca-tion:
“I know lots and lots”
All this shows is that MS cannot succeed in an open, fair competitive market where it has to offer a quality product. It can only succeed when it can engage in sleazy monopolistic practices. Apple scooped the market before MS could get in and use its typical underhanded shenanigans.
“Yawn”…. another Aplle fanboi playing journalist again…….. wake me when this guy can really write a story.
Man you guys really are full of yourselves. Very little human dignity showing from this group. I guess this is what Freud would call MP3 envy……
Zune, another proof of the fact that a product is never totally useless, it can always act as a bad example.