“Rumors persist about a Zune phone. I say it’s totally unlikely for a pretty simple reason. The business model of Windows Mobile is totally different than Zune,” Michael Gartenberg blogs or Jupiter Research.
“WinMo is a core platform and OS. No one has ever been successful licensing technology platforms to others and then competing with a device of their own,” Gartenberg explains.
“There’s certainly some likelihood of MSFT exploring a Zune phone but far more likely mobile Zune branded functions just get baked into a future version of Windows Mobile,” Gartenberg writes.
Full article here.
That’s all well and good, but how about the fact that Microsoft’s Zune also happens to be an abject failure?
Nobody buys Zunes. Nobody wants a Zune in their WinMo (retch) phone. For that matter, nobody wants a WinMo (blech) phone. We see no lines for such mobile telephony devices. None. Crickets.
Zune has done one thing: it has cemented “Microsoft” and “Mediocrity” together for an entire generation. Coinciding with the other abject failure, Windows Vista, Microsoft managed to shoot itself both feet at the same time. Stupid move. By stupid, incompetent leadership.
So stupid, in fact that we wouldn’t be surprised to see them launch a “Zune phone” on Monday along with a $500 million ad campaign designed to explain to you that people used to think the world was flat, so even though you and 10,000 reviewers tried it and found it to suck hard, you were wrong. Because Microsoft thinks they’re smarter than you. And because people used to think the world was flat, you made exactly the wrong choice by buying those iPods and now those iPhones and dumping Microsoft’s magnificent Windows for Macs in droves. So, any company that is planning on spending $500 million to tell each person on the planet 50 times per week that “Just like those flat-earthers back when, you’re just an ignorant fool and you’re stupid for not liking Vista,” is certainly capable of producing a fargin’ “Zune phone” at any moment.
Huh? Oh, yeah, shhh! (Sorry.) We mean: “May Ballmer run Microsoft for as long as it takes!”
to
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> No one has ever been successful licensing technology platforms to others and then competing with a device of their own
I guess that’s true enough. Zune was created to complete with Microsoft’s “partners” who licensed Windows Media. And it wasn’t very successful.
The Motley Fool just happened to report on the same subject and they, too, didn’t give it much of a chance.
http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2008/07/25/the-zune-phone-gimme-a-break.aspx
Dang, I was wantin’ to buy one-
For those times when I need to talk sh!t…..
I think it is time to block all information regarding the Zune…it is dead, done….time to let it rest in peace. Nice Job MS….
No shit.
{rolls_eyes}
If Ballmer wants a Zune Phone, Ballmer GETS a Zune Phone.
Zune and ZunePhone = Dumb and Dumber
ZuneTang and Afib (and his other names) = Dumb and Dumberer
hey, what about the oPhone!?
It’s weird, three people in my small office like their Zunes. Of course, three of us have iPhones and unlike the Zune folks, we actually use our products.
The Zune: Phone Edition. It now calls home to Microsoft and if they think any of your movies or songs are pirated, they collectively bust your ass. I could see something like that happening, but Microsoft introducing an actual Zune Phone is likely to be just something more for us to laugh at.
Even Ballmer knows better than to dump his money *directly* into an open sewer. He likes to pretend it’s going to be productive along the way.
The Zune platform has failed. Everyone that has any sort of planning or budgeting function on the Zune team knows this.
Your iPod Killer hasn’t made a bloody dent.
So do you think Ballmer is off his axis enough to think that releasing a color-me-poop phone is now also a good idea?
…
*GOD* I hope so. >.<
-c
Mr. Ballmer,
Bring. It. On.
If M$ sold their zunes in the woods would any hear them?
I can see their ads now with Zuneytunes “ba dee ba dee ba dee that’s all folks”
I was in the middle of a Teleport on my iTele when the Zune Phone I was using crashed.
Not good!
I’d like to remind the class…
That Motorola Q phone that SB (…ballmer, not Strong Bad) so lovingly promoted many moons ago…?
Ninety-Nine Dollars!!!
Remember how Motorola was so proud of its numbers for the first month of Q sales? I do.
Remember how Apple knocked them to the floor, beat them to a thin, greasy paste, bisected the body and filesystemconsistencychecked the eye sockets?
Yeah. Good times.
Great things are afoot, earth man. Come now or you will be late.
What do the analysts know? Nothing. The ZunePhone will be a revolutionary, easy to use device that works where it counts: the enterprise. And it will be a platform. I’ll remind you MAC babies that Microsoft knows a thing or two about building platforms. Around this time next year everyone will have forgotten about the I-Phone. Why? It doesn’t have an FM radio.
Keep hope alive.
Your potential. Our passion.™
@ Zune Tang®
You complete me.
Clearly, Microsoft missed their target market with the Zune.
Add a couple lead wires and the Zune could have been an MP3 player slash multitester. Next, swap out the FM for HAM radio and ohmygod! they’d sell dozens of those.
Zune Tang,
Here is the platform that MicroSoft is presently building. It will fit them perfectly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallows
A Phune …?
The Truth,
I’ve heard that MicroSoft is developing an audiophile version of the Zune. They will begin manufacturing as soon as they figure out where to mount the vacuum tubes.
Huh? Oh, yeah, shhh! (Sorry.) We mean: “May Ballmer run Microsoft for as long as it takes!”
As it stands, Microsoft must look really very enviously upon the iPhone. They couldn’t possibly have built a more consumer unfriendly, locked up device than the iPhone, and made people smile while standing in line to pay ridiculous amounts of money for it.
They must think, “Gee… we were the kings of making people pay through the nose for highly controlled and restricted environments. What happened??”
Any other telephone in the world you can buy and just put your SIM card in and it works, but the iPhone? Nope. Microsoft must drool over this.
Any other cell phone in the world, if you upgrade, you can give your old one away to charities or friends or whatever. With the iPhone you can’t do that.
Can you imagine, donating your old iPhone to a battered women’s charity but when the phone is given to someone, she can’t just get some cheap plan, she’s got to get at least a $100 a month plan, plus some kind of data plan.
Oh and illegal aliens need not apply. You need Government approved I.D. to activate your iPhone.
Wow. Not even Microsoft can make people line up and wait literally for hours to be handcuffed.
Nope, a Zune phone is unlikely because no one can duplicate this consumer experience.
Now that BG has headed for shore, and the SS Balmer has left port, it will be interesting (to say the least) to see where it heads next…