Could they have picked a worse, more grating name? Despite an interesting feature list, restrictions and price could make this a tough sell in a tough market.
The Zune chronicles, part 1 – CNET reviews
By the time Microsoft’s answer to the iPod launches late this year, we’ll already know the product inside and out. That is, if we’re believing all the street talk. Microsoft PR remains mum on the topic.
One thing is certain: I’ll give much more credibility to a Microsoft rumor than an Apple one any old day (read: Apple knows how to keep secrets, Microsoft doesn’t). Digital Music News has a full-blown report based on inside sources, detailing new developments on the Microsoft-branded portable media device, also known as Zune (and Xpod, and part of Project Argo). The report comes in four parts, no less. Here are some highlights (quoted text is from the report unless otherwise noted):
* Microsoft is aiming to capture 20 percent of the iPod market.
J. K.’s take: The iPod owns about 77 percent (according to NPD) of the U.S. market with runner-up SanDisk holding about 10 percent. Twenty percent is ambitious, even if the player is a winner. Remember that Microsoft has to compete against hordes of players that live in the Windows Media PlaysForSure universe (Creatives, iRivers, Samsungs, SanDisks), in addition to competing against Apple.
What happened to The Argo? Was that just an internal name?
Yawn, more junk from Microsoft.
The music sharing description sounds lame. I think I’d rather share music with a Califone turntable than this thing.
I’m holding out for the Steve Ballmer, dance, dance, scream and yell like an idoit model.
Big win for major labels, especially on the variable pricing. Consumers will figure out that iTunes Music Store, with its fixed pricing scheme, offers the best deals (outside of the BuyMusics of the world) for purchasing music. On the flip side, variable pricing and bundling (ie selling albums rather than songs) will open up more content choices for the consumer.
I’m supposed to be excited about a service that will charge more for hit songs? And provide more album-only content from groups that don’t have hit songs?
The key to the iPod is iTunes. I have seen some great mp3 players, some with mics and even radio tuners, that I would have used, except for iTunes. I love iTunes like it is the 2nd coming of Christ, and many people find iTunes just as useful. WMP is an absolute beast when it comes to media players, and I hate when I get a WMV file from my e-mail contacts, cause that means I have to dredge up my WMP. It’s iTunes, and the iPod’s seamless integration with it, that has made the iPod so popular, and until MS can come up with a true competition in that field, anything they do in MP3 players is doomed to fail.
I’m with you on that Jared – it is a *beautiful* piece of software and integrates all the functions you need perfectly – I just don’t get MS bringing out all these crappy bits of hardware that just aren’t as good as the alternatives – all that R&D money could have been spent on WINFS 🙁
Personally, I hate iTunes. It can’t keep a synced to a dynamic PC library. It also has long “Lock” periods when you do actions like delete songs from your ipod. I much prefer my Archos with a directory interface.
Personally, I think the true idea to pursue if you want to kill the iPod is to open your system up. Sure, it can still be a DRM locked music/video player, but let everyone develop their own apps for it also.
Let the users decide what else they want to use the unit for. I think you might be surprised by a whole new generation of applications.
Yeah, so many people hate the iPod that it has a market share that any other company in any other field would sell their mother for.
Smartalix,
Remember, markets have a tendancy to move on. Remember the market share of the C64? The life span of a MP3 player is 2-3 years at best.
All I know is our two iPods gather dust while my GMini seems to be always in use.
Well, that much time has already passed, and it will be years more before they lost the #1 slot. I’ll send you a dollar and make a public statment as to your acumen if I am wrong. Let’s check back in 2010.
1) They don’t call it “MP-3 Casting”
2) Nobody ever built a walkman dock as a factory install in a car.
3) How many accessories are custom-built by every significant audio company for the other devices?
You iPod-bashers are in serious denial. The iPod has changed the face of the consumer electronics industry.
I think Zune and Argo are codenames. I’m sure they’ll come up with something that sounds worse for the shipping product 🙂
Origami anyone? I don’t know what’s worse, the codenames or the final product. To be fair “Xenon” has turned out pretty good (xbox360).
I think Me just likes to be perverse. Even if the iPod market were going to really erode (which it is not) time would be required. Alix’s off the cuff reference to 2010 is pretty accurate. If the iPod has as little as 50 percent of the market then, it will still have ruled for a very long time for a consumer product.
Steve Jobs vs. everyone else WINNER Steve Jobs This guy is single handedly making the recording artists and movie studios eat out of his hand. I can hear the stomping of feet at Microsoft.
Man, I am so looking forward to moving off the Microsoft platform.
this is good. it will help prevent apple from getting over confident and lousing the iPod. They are good at what they do, Apple is, and a little (optional emphasis on little) competition should keep them good at what they do.
I personnaly think that the iPod is a over inflated beast. It’s a great little player, stunning design and very good software, but… could be sold for a third of the price. Apple is at it’s best capitalizing the intangible. It’s their knack. Their savoir-faire…To develop something very good but make it to be perceived as outstanding… and cashing in!
The “fashion” and “status” allure these things have made it to #1 gadget. It’s ridiculous if you think straight.
Jobs has seen my last penny long time ago…
Everyone here agrees that Apple makes elegant software and hardware. We’d probably all agree that MS doesn’t. Joao sez that Apple’s iPod is an over inflated beast, and that Apple is perceived as making something outstanding when it is just good. Outstanding is a relative term by definition. Apple’s products stand well above Microsoft’s subpar offerings time after time. Steve Jobs won’t cry over the pennies you’re not giving him. He laughs because you are settling for crap because you wish to prove your point.
I’m sure he’s not laughing at me, nor missing my pennies. Neither is he smiling at the one that buy his hardware… he’s a businessman, and, true, somewhat of a visionary, and he found the way he wants to play.
He wants to sell only one thing to you, but want’s you to think it’s the only thing in the world.
M$ is trying to sell you the crap others sell you but with some more complication and with a heftier price tag.
And this Apple vs. world thing is boring me too. It’s like cars…
Everyone agrees that BMW makes outstanding cars (outstanding meaning whay it reads: standing above the rest), yet we are not all driving Beemers…and the ones driving Hyundays are getting home at night too as the Beemers of the world. Me personally I drive an old Honda Civic and I like it a lot. If I had 4 or 5 times my income I wouldn’t mind a Beemer, but I’m not feeling I’m settling for crap too…
And the F***king iPod, for one, gets a bit on my nerves too. I don’t like the obligation of using iTunes to load it with songs, and to reformat it if I move from Mac to PC. Also don’t like the Mac “exclusiveness” of iPods, if you own a Mac you are almost exclusively stuck with an iPod since the rest won’t work with Mac.
Just for the record I really love my crappy Taiwan made Mp3player I can load with songs just by pluging it to a mac, windows or linux machine. it’s so simple that I’m planning to buy one newer, as crappy but with 2Gb, and shelling out 69.99 Euros.
That, makes ME smile.
I think MS has what it takes to win this fight.