“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.
Twi
I gotta get me that phone/iron combo so I can talk to all the hot babes….!
In reply to I.P. Address on the comparison — you’re right in a lot of ways. Of course, I had to use the Zune Marketplace software in order to write the article, so while I’m much more familiar with the iTunes Store, I was more familiar with Zune by the time I was ready to write.
Whether or not I’ve used a Zune isn’t particularly important since I was discussing the store, and not the players.
That said, my article is distinctly lopsided. I really disliked the Zune software and found it next to unusable.
@cosmos
Yeah, Zune Tang is MDN’s Stephen Colbert. Get it?
MDN magic word: simple – as in: It’s that simple.
Zune Tang, you are my hero. Laughing my bloody ass off.
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It really is mind boggling. The whole idea of the Zune is just a big giant “me-too” as the writer says. Just stupid.
TowerTone..
sorry they sold out, they were hot sellers..
Damn Twi, that’s depressing talk….
The entire purpose of Zune, like the Xbox, MS Online, and every other line of business at Microsoft besides the Windows/Office monopoly, is to serve the egos of Ballmer and his suck-ups.
They’re wasting billions of their shareholders’ money which should be paid out in dividends.
-jcr
Colbert, is that you?
Zune Marketplace Sucks But It WILL NOT Swallow
(please keep your arms inside the vehicle at all times)
Let the roadkill die in peace already.
Honestly folks. The Zune is dead in the water. I love bashing MS for their demolition of the computer community as much as anyone. But why are we still bothering to even acknowledge the existence of this Zune POS? Stop playing in the toilet kids!
Instead of trying to catch Apple, Microsoft should figure out how SanDisk manages 8.6% with no music store and no “ecosystem.”
Hey TowerTone,
You like Obama Waffles?
Thanks for the news Zune Thang. Nothing I love better than to hear that the Zune is here to stay. The more money MS loses on it the better. Hmm a huge bite out of the iPod pie. Seems to me you said that a couple years ago when the Zune was introduced. Let’s see they are at 2% now. Well at that rate only 98 years to go. Keep up the great work.
“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.” Got any facts to back that FUD up Zuney? I don’t think so.
I am sure glad you are clinging too God, it will make her trip easier as she escorts you to the Gates of Dell. Thank goodness she listens to her celestial music on an iPod so she doesn’t have to put up with your “wahhhhhhhhhhhh whining.
See ya later moron.
Yes, MDN would simply not be the same without the beloved Zune Tang. Even his/her purposeful misspellings are now becoming the stuff of legend for the forum devotees. But, to answer MDN’s question, I’m sure Zune only exists to show how far ahead of the curve Apple is. And that MS is too damn stubborn to pull out of the game.
I like that someone wrote an article about how easy it is to find classical tracks on iTMS. Rarely do you hear about that, and it’s probably because classical sales account for maybe 4% of the total music market these days (and that includes syrupy Andrea Bocelli and other acts that barely qualify for the genre) so the readership for articles like that is probably really small. Finding specific tracks or pieces has been greatly simplified on iTMS for three reasons — first, Apple actually bothers to put classical music prominently in the store and give much of that section the full artistic treatment (just look up Joshua Bell for instance to see the treatment his iTMS page gets). Second, Gracenote came out with its Classical Music Initiative a couple years back to consistently apply the half-dozen-odd label fields across the three standard lines of text in portable devices so that it becomes, third, really easy to hunt for specific tracks with Apple’s always-reliable search engine.
I was really excited about passionato when I learned about it here a few days back, but after my initial reaction, I kind of realized that iTunes makes it rather unnecessary.
MS can afford to keep producing the Zune forever and will eventually catch up with Apple. MS can blow wads of money and have no profitable margins with the Zune for years until they win. Thats what makes this whole business against MS unfair. MS has guaranteed revenue quarter after quarter with their monopoly.
“so the readership for articles like that is probably really small”
Boy, is it ever. However, readership for a classical music blog is steady and enthusiastic, even if the numbers tend to be modest.
I have news for you little sissy PC lemmings: The iPod here to stay and it’s about to take a huge bite out of the little Zune pie. The media buzz and critical raves for the latest round of iTunes updates simply drowns out whatever nonsense snorefest announcements PC 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 iPod 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 failed and poorly made the choice to fight the consumer hostile monopoly MICROSOFT has foisted upon the public. Thank you, APPLE!
Your potential. Our Blunder.™
Another winner.
You kill me!
God, guns and Zune? I love it. That’s hilarious!
Keep cracking me up!
Thanks!
…if I remember correctly, Steve showed that some 160M iPods have been sold over all models, cumulative.
Let’s assume that the worldwide distribution more or less match the US distribution of models, i.e. some 70-75% iPods, vs some 2-3% Zunies – this would add up to only some 5-6M Zunies out there in the wild.
Continuing from the same figures, it means that some 1 in 30 people worldwide have some kind of MP3 player, some 1 in 40 have an iPod of some kind… and less than 1 in 1000 have a Zunie…
“One rather wonders why MS even bothers…”
Indeed…
(still on the lookout to spot my first Zune in the wild here in Europe…)
“What is the point of Zune?”
The Zune player and Marketplace are multi-billion dollar failures serving only one purpose. To annoy the crap out of Steve Jobs. This is what billionaires do when they are feeling petulant and bored. On the rare occasion that the Zune gets good press, the Microsoft Board has a private tickle fight followed by an ice cream sundae party and a long nap. Ballmer usually sulks because no one even offers to braid his hair.