“A fair amount of journalistic grave-dancing followed Bloomberg’s report Monday that Microsoft had decided to stop developing new versions of its Zune music and video player — a report Microsoft did not deny,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“Microsoft didn’t get into the market until 2006 — five years after Apple launched its music player and three years after iPod sales took off with the Windows version of iTunes,” P.E.D. reports. “Redmond probably threw hundreds of millions of dollars into Zune…”
P.E.D. writes, “You have to ask yourself: If Microsoft couldn’t compete with the iPod, what chance do all those tablet makers rushing me-too products to market have against the iPad?”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “qka” for the heads up.]
uh, no chance?
Or “Xoomed to failure”… either way, it makes no difference. 🙂
Poor Zune-Tang… 😉
anyone can compete with Apple.. Microsoft did a poor job against a very well run team at Apple.
Formula for success =
– innovative original product
– strong implementation of core features
– diverse, high quality 3rd part ecosystem – aka apps
– great retail experience – you know like the Apple Retail stores
– great ads by a firm like Chiat-Day
– management team that knows how to tie the above together
– shrewd operations team that can build a high quality product for less money keeping margins healthy
– and of course the lowest price
Did I forget anything?
Yes, you forgot that once you apply a formula to these things, you wind up with a Microsoftian organization that, in the end, cannot produce anything it set out to do.
Just sit back, fire up some weed and let the energy flow.
Buyers.
The best part of the summary was Elmer-DeWitt’s new acronym.
“Mr. Elmer-DeWitt, would you have a seat over there, please?”
Does anyone know how to get the mdn iphone app, or does it even exist at the moment?
I don’t know if they have an app. I just added it to the home screen.
The iPhone “app” is currently a web-based app (mobile version of the web site). If you see the full version of MDN in your iPhone’s Safari, look for the link at the top of the page that switches to the mobile layout. I think it works quite well (better than the native old app).
Zal,
They have had an App. However, if you click on APP across the black menu bar on the top of this page, it says that the app is currently “disabled”.
So that take the failure that is Zune and apply it to Windows Mobile ’07. A recipe for success?
Can you say… FLUMMOXED,
Steve did…
LOL!
Microsoft just keeps losing keep Ballmer T Clown in power!
MDN referenced by Fortune.
Way to go,
Now more of those big fat cats (Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Guys, Wall Street dudes) have a better idea where to get pro Apple news: MDN (to balance out distorted “antenna-gate” “the Xoom is better than iPad” crap). Maybe aapl stock would go where it should be: higher.
Not only referenced MDN, but actually kept track of ALL 13 dead “iPod killers.” Not baaaad.
Hey MDN, that’s street cred!
This article is informative, thanks for sharing this. Zune is a software for music and entertainment. It’s a digital media jukebox, and your media hub. Keep sharing an article like this.
I like zune player because of its graphical interface. I like their design and the equalizer is very clear. I have a zune player on my ipad.