“This week Apple brought out a bevy of shiny new iPods, and what delightful goodies they are. Amidst the itchy-kitchy-cooing over the new Nanos and Touches, Microsoft sort-of announced a sort-of enhancement to their Zune players,” Scott Foglesong reports for The San Francisco Examiner.
“Zune, by the way, is Microsoft’s attempt to compete with the triple-socko iTunes/iPod/iTunes Music Store combo that dominates digital music these days. It incorporates a player (copying the iPod), management software (copying iTunes), and an online music store (copying the iTunes Music Store). Nowhere has Microsoft’s earnestness in the ‘me-too’ department been quite as glaring as in the case of the Zune,” Foglesong reports.
“Since both the iPod and Zune ecosystems include an online music store, I thought I’d compare the two in terms of classical music downloads,” Foglesong reports.
“The iTunes Music Store may not be perfect, but it simply blows Zune out of the water, and for classical music, there is no comparison. Searches are easy and reliable, the selection is excellent, the software graceful and inviting,” Foglesong reports. “One rather wonders why Microsoft even bothers…”
Full article, with Foglesong’s comparison test and results, here.
Picking up where Foglesong left off, Todd Bishop reports for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “Microsoft Corp. says it will forge ahead with its Zune music device despite capturing only a sliver of the market since launching its challenge to Apple Inc.’s dominant iPod two years ago. Apple has 70 percent of the U.S. portable digital player market, compared with Microsoft’s 3 percent, according to data from the NPD group research firm.”
MacDailyNews Note: Using the most recent numbers from NPD, July 2008, Apple iPod has 73.4%, “Other” has 15.4%, SanDisk has 8.6%, and Microsoft Zune has 2.6%.
Bishop continues, “Before launching the Zune initiative, Microsoft focused primarily on providing the underlying software technology for music devices from a variety of hardware makers. The company abandoned that strategy and came out with the player of its own after it became clear that Apple was going unchecked.”
MacDailyNews Take: And, after two years on the market, Microsoft’s Zune has done absolutely nothing to prevent Apple from “going unchecked.” So, the question remains, what’s the point? To reinforce Microsoft’s impotency in the minds of consumers worldwide? Must be, because that’s what Zune does best. Zune, coupled with the Vista debacle and the “Get a Mac” ads, add up to a triple whammy that is rapidly eroding the Microsoft brand. Don’t worry, says Microsoft, Mac user Jerry Seinfeld will save the day with rigid churros. Microsoft shareholders must not be paying any attention at all or they’d be have sharpened their pitchforks and gone on the march long before today.
Bishop continues, “Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division, said Microsoft isn’t planning to get out of the music device business anytime soon. ‘No, I think we’re pretty far down the path of saying, we’re in this marketplace, and we’re going to be in this marketplace.'”
Full article here.
Microsoft’s Gates+Seinfeld ads are more comprehensible than Zune’s existence.
I hate to bring this up. My son is in his rebellious years. His iPod was stolen and he replaced it with a zune. Still the only one I’ve ever seen. The horror!
Well, that’s some nice anti-theft protection he got himself there. Who wants a Zune???
The zune I laid down this morning blows the Zune Marketplace out of the (toilet)water.
@MikeR,
I’ve seen two in the wild – both recently. One was a girl I work with who bought it because the salesman told her that you cannot watch movies on an iPod! I wonder how much of a kickback he got.
It’s bad when your enemy upgrades to a machine gun (WITH COLORS) and you’re still fiddling around with musket balls.
“One rather wonders why Microsoft even bothers…”
That covers a lot of ground, Scott.
Robbie Bach: “I have my job today. And tomorrow”.
The Microsoft gravy train rumbles on….and MS Execs close their eyes and ears to the thunderous roar of customers leaving the building…
@HMCIV,
Given the homoerotic undertones to the new Micro$ucks commercials, I think you may have meant “musty balls”.
MDN, I know I have the choice and do exercise it, but I do not like all the personal survey questions being asked each time I visit the site.
Provide the operating system to the hardware makers and thrive.
Yeah, right. That strategy may have worked twenty-five years ago when hardware and “compassionate conservatism” was still a novelty, but now a days consumers have been empowered by their wallets and their votes.
In fact, I believe that Apple’s consumers climbed triumphantly from the primordial ooze and are now paving the way for J & J Six-pack, who are the one’s now thriving in the iPod ecosystem.
We still have a functioning first-gen iPod (5gb) (FireWire!). After looking at a Zune in the store recently, it’s amazing how little physical improvement the Zune is even over that 2001 iPod. Comparing the size/shape/heft to a current-gen iPod, there’s just simply no comparison.
@Macaday
Just don’t pull a Kanye and start swingin’… ignore them!
“iTunes Store simply blows Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace”
I don’t like the sound of that.
“Zune Marketplace Sucks”
There, all better…..
“Zune Marketplace Sucks, iTunes Store Off and Running Full Blast”
Now even MORE better, with 50% more ‘Uh Huh’ (and a fresh new scent!)….
AFAICT, MS is losing money hand over fist with the Zune. Surely at some point the shareholders are going to say WTF is going on?
Even a monopoly can’t throw money at a losing proposition forever.
I think Zune Tang™ should change his name to 2.6% Tang™.
I have news for you little sissy MAC lemmings: The Zune here to stay and it’s about to take a huge bite out of the I-Pod pie. The media buzz and critical raves for the latest round of Zune updates simply drowns out whatever nonsense snorefest announcements MAC made this week in San Francisco. Besides, I expect such elitist comments from a smug hippy San Francisco “journalist” anyway. I happily cling to God, my guns and my fabulous Zune in the REAL U. S. of A! And gays make me so mad I could punch somebody in the face!
Nothing says “we’re in it to win it” like “I think we’re pretty far down the path of saying, we’re in this marketplace, and we’re going to be in this marketplace.” Microsoft has confidently and rightly made the choice to fight the consumer hostile monopoly MAC has foisted upon the public. Thank you, Microsoft!
Your potential. Our passion.™
Yes, dear.
TowerTone: “”Zune Marketplace Sucks”
There, all better…..”
The Zune Zucks!
Zune is Crackalackin!
Apparently the Zune.. Zucked!
Ooops, make that 2.6% Tang®, my bad!
I smell lawsuit for copyright infringement for Zuneˆ Tang˚
Microsoft shareholders must not be paying any attention at all or they’d be have sharpened their pitchforks and gone on the march long before today.
Unfortunately, virtually all of us own a piece of Microsoft, in our retirement plans, etc., simply because it is one of the biggest companies in the world. Kind of like GM. Kind of like Enron.
Unfortunately we have little little control over what our plan and fund managers do with our money.
Zune Tang… It takes an idiot to turn a technology-based report into something completely out of context — Gays? God? Guns? WTF? Keep your arguments within context and maybe people will at least take and ponder on your arguments more seriously. But mixing in something as irrelevant as sexual preferences, faith and gun control in a technology/product-based argument only shows that you are ignorant and have the IQ of an idiot with an EQ of a 6-year-old.
Finally, to summarize in the words of the Great Jon Stewart: “ARE YOU INSANE?!”
While I appreciate the full disclosure in the first article, the author’s own admission, “I describe the Zune only because I have never used a Zune” and “I’ve never used the “Zune Marketplace” doesn’t qualify the article as a fair and balanced comparison. While I agree with the results, his comparison is biased which therefore the results are are also biased. Again, I don’t disagree with his conclusion; this article isn’t the “poster child” of a fair and balanced assessment.
@ Cosmos
Zune Tang is KIDDING.
You’ll get used to it.
S/He even becomes a bit endearing after a while.