Not much Zune in Microsoft exec's speech
Microsoft's annual Financial Analyst Meeting, in which the company goes over its past fiscal year's results and highlights areas of focus for the coming year, is always a good opportunity for tea-leaf reading.
Microsoft's Robbie Bach, head of the company's Entertainment and Devices business.
(Credit: Microsoft)After CEO Steve Ballmer's introductory speech, in which he spent a lot of time talking about Microsoft's online business, efforts to compete against Google in search, and the aborted Yahoo tie-up, Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach was up. He talked about nearly everything in his business division. He started with the upcoming Xbox Live redesign. He talked about Xbox games. He spent a long time talking about Windows Mobile and the competition with Apple and RIM, as well as new forms of advertising for mobile phones. He talked about Microsoft's IPTV business, the Surface computing table (which is beginning to appear in real-world deployments), and the company's automotive platform.
Zune? It appeared on one slide, but Bach mentioned it for only about five seconds--blink and you'd miss it. Microsoft's showing the device in a nearby demonstration area, and the company has assured me that they're planning some sort of update later this year. But still--4 percent market share, combined with a new urgency on the mobile phone side, and I've got to wonder how much more effort Microsoft's going to put into the Zune in this upcoming fiscal year.
Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995, and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattrosoff. 
Financially, Zune is spare change that's not worth mentioning to financial analysts.
Tell that to Apple, Sony, Creative, and SanDisk as well as the dozen or so companies that make their hard drives and other components. They have made millions from their digital music players.
Financially, Zune is spare change that's not worth mentioning to financial analysts.
But iPods are everywhere, the Zune's on its 2nd generation and it has barely started to get noticed lately, and this is the time for the Zune to start picking up some sales but Apple will still reign for quite a while.
I live in the NYC area. There are two major industry conventions. Toy Fair which is held in February. This is for the toy retail buyers to see what manufactures have so they can place their order for Christmas.
Then there is the Fall/Winter fashion week. Which is held in March. Not October.
What we as consumers see on our shelfs buyers saw at trade shows 6-10 months earlier.
The thing about the Zune is there is nothing unique about the device. It's another "me too" mp3 player and the Zune marketplace does not even come close to comparing to iTunes or some of the others out there. Again... MS was too little, too late with this device. No innovation here either so why bother? I think MS knows this now too.
have you ever tried using the Zune marketplace/software? its not that bad.
I honestly can't speak about the software itself since I don't live in the US, but why does it sell tracks priced in Microsoft Points? Really? Points? What's wrong with real money? That's one of the dumbest things I've heard of. That iTunes will price media in local currency is a definite advantage over some bizarre points scheme.
- by Dalkorian July 24, 2008 3:42 PM PDT
- M$ is far to worried about the fista disaster to spend any energy worrying about the zune disaster. Besides, he was supposed to reassure the analysts that M$ isn't tanking hard despite the disasters. That's harder to do when you remind them of the disasters. I bet the slide was supposed to be pulled too!
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- by AndrewAmazed July 24, 2008 10:31 PM PDT
- what Zune disaster? there is no disaster. the Zune is better than the iPod
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- by kelmon July 25, 2008 12:03 AM PDT
- "the Zune is better than the iPod"
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(16 Comments)If consumers don't think so, does that even matter? There's been plenty of superior products over the years that have lost out to the competition. If Microsoft can't manage the product properly then it's even more of a disaster because it should have done better. So far the Zune has been a waste of money for Microsoft unless they can make a dent into the MP3 player market. Historically they seem to think that if they continue to throw money at a product that it will eventually succeed but I am certain that this will not always work, and in those circumstances you are just throwing money away.