“After two years in the music player business, Zune only has a 2 percent market share,” Saul Hansell reports for The New York Times.
“When the Microsoft delegation arrived last year to unveil the second generation of players, Chris Stephenson, Zune’s marketing head, said the company’s low market share in its first year was because it had only offered a hard-drive model at the high end of the market. With the addition of less expensive flash players, starting at $149. Mr. Stephenson said the company hoped to vault to No. 2 in the market, leaping past SanDisk,” Hansell reports.
“‘Fifteen percent [market share] would be great for us,’ he said,” Hansell reports.
Hansell reports, “SanDisk still sells four times more music players than Microsoft does.”
When Adam Sohn, the head of public relations for Microsoft’s Zune division, demoed the “new” Zunes models, Hansell reports, “I didn’t see anything in the third generation of Zunes that is going to shake up the market. Like Apple, it added capacity at its existing price points. It’s got a little trick to let you identify songs you hear listening to the FM radio and buy them from Zune’s music store.”
MacDailyNews Take: Wonder where they got that idea?
• Sony unveils four ‘Xplod’ Apple iPod-compatible car stereos with Apple iTunes Tagging – August 28, 2008
• Clear Channel Radio now broadcasting over 340 HD stations compatible with Apple iTunes Tagging – April 08, 2008
• Apple iTunes Tagging explained – March 13, 2008
• Bloomberg News columnist William Pesek: Why doesn’t Apple just buy Sony (or Nintendo?) – February 18, 2008
• Apple Stores to sell Polk Audio iPod, iTunes Tagging for HD Radio products throughout U.S. – February 04, 2008
• Sony unveils Made for iPod shelf systems, car stereos, HD Radio with iTunes Tagging – January 08, 2008
• Apple to push HD Radio boomboxes with iPod docks and iTunes tagging at Macworld Expo – December 28, 2007
• High hopes for Apple iTunes tagging for HD Radio – November 05, 2007
• How does tagging for Apple iTunes work? – October 10, 2007
• Clear Channel teams with Apple on iTunes tagging for HD Digital Radio – October 03, 2007
• Polk intros I-Sonic Entertainment System 2 with Apple iTunes Tagging – September 07, 2007
• Apple, iBiquity Digital, major radio broadcasters announce iTunes tagging for HD Radio – September 06, 2007
Hansell continues, “Two years after introducing the only really groundbreaking feature on the Zune — its WiFi access — Microsoft finally will let users buy songs directly on the device using the WiFi. (Yes, Apple, which has had WiFi devices since the iPhone and iPod Touch, added wireless purchases last year.)”
Hansell reports that Sohn “admitted that the new $229 starting price point for the iPod touch, which has a larger screen yet, was going to cause some trouble in that corner of Zune’s tiny market.”
“Unlike Apple, Microsoft has a big division devoted to advertising. The WiFi connections on all the Zune players would be ideal to stream ad-supported video and maybe music,” Hansell reports. “We’re working on it, Mr. Sohn told me.”
MacDailyNews Take: There’s a selling point. 
Hansell continues, “Meanwhile, Apple continues to weave its way deeper and deeper into the music, video and now telephone business. And it has a shot at defining the next platform for handheld computing as well.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “HMCIV” for the heads up.]