“Over the past few days, more and more Microsoft watchers are noticing that Microsoft execs seem to be making a deliberate effort to avoid using the Z (Zune) word,” Mary Jo Foley writes for ZDNet. “That avoidance has set off a wave of speculation.”
“Some pundits claiming that Microsoft is moving to rebrand the service (Windows Live Entertainment, anyone?). Others believe Microsoft is clearing the decks to allow Microsoft’s latest and biggest Windows Phone partner Nokia to take over the streaming-music part of the service,” Foley writes. “(I’m not putting a lot of stock in that one, since Nokia recently closed the Ovi Music Streaming service.)”
Foley writes, “Some veteran Microsoft heavy-hitters are moving to the Xbox division, as I’ve blogged recently, and are seemingly working on some kind of services-focused project. And the Zune team — which Microsoft split and reorged (twice) — is already in the Interactive Entertainment Business division, which is the home of the Xbox. Maybe the Zune service will end up as part of the evolving Microsoft IPTV strategy?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Only Microsoft could have a handful of retail stores (derivative of Apple, naturally) where workers routinely outnumber customers 10-1 that offer a products like Zune, which nobody wants. As Charlie Sheen and Lindsey Lohan routinely demonstrate so well: Far too much money combined with far too little sense is a recipe for disaster.