Manage updates with the Download AppSeptember 14, 2006 9:57 AM PDT
Microsoft unwraps Zune for holiday season
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The device, which the company anticipates will be ready in time for the holidays, will come in three colors and be capable, via its built-in Wi-Fi, of sharing full-length songs with other nearby Zune devices, the software giant said. As had been revealed through regulatory filings, it includes a 30GB hard drive as well as a 3-inch screen. The Zune will come in black, brown and white, but the company has declined to reveal any pricing information.
With the Zune, Microsoft is chasing Apple and its iconic music player, the iPod, which has thus far eclipsed all challengers. For Microsoft to mount a serious campaign against Apple--which has sold more than 60 million iPods in five years--the Zune has to offer compelling features that the iPod lacks, analysts say. This gets harder and harder to do with Apple's continuous upgrades of the iPod.
On Tuesday, Apple introduced a revamped 30GB video iPod that, while lacking wireless abilities or a larger screen, offers a brighter screen, longer battery life and a lower price tag ($249) than its predecessor. There had been a report last month that Microsoft was hoping to charge $299 for the Zune, Apple's then-price for the 30GB iPod. Microsoft declined on Thursday to detail Zune's price but said it will be revealed in coming weeks and will be competitive.
Scott Erickson, Microsoft's senior director of product management for Zune, said his device is different from the iPod, because it offers an alternative to the typical solitary music-listening experience.
Zune users can send full-length tracks of select songs, homemade recordings or photos to other Zune players via the device's Wi-Fi. The shared songs can be heard up to three times over three days. Should a user like a song a friend has shared, the song can be flagged and later can be purchased from the Zune Marketplace. Not every song will be available to swap however, Erickson said. Artists can opt out, but fans will have access to the vast majority of titles, he added.
"We want to build community around new bands, new artists," Erickson said. "Today, you really can't do that. What we're offering is connection."
That may not be enough, says Susan Kevorkian, an analyst with IDC. She gave Microsoft points for style and functionality but said the Redmond, Wash.-based company failed to go far enough in building an iPod alternative.
Zune falls short in two areas, she said: It won't be ready to offer video in time for the holidays and Zune users can't access the music service from the device itself, which will hamper people from making impulse buys, Kevorkian said.
"Zune looks good but it needs to get better and better quickly to give Apple a run for the money," Kevorkian said.
Not launching with video capability ignores growing interest in the sector. On Tuesday, Apple announced plans to make movies available for purchase through the iTunes store. Movies from four studios owned by Walt Disney will be available on iTunes 7, the new version of the download software, the same day they are released to DVD.
Microsoft recognizes the video trend, but wanted to stay focused on music for the launch of the first device. "That's what the vast majority of people are doing online right now. Video is still really early," Erickson said.
Microsoft has said it will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the Zune effort, but said it still expects it to take several years to make significant headway against Apple. In the meantime, Zune's software can automatically import music, pictures and videos from iTunes and Windows Media Player, however the device does not--as some had speculated--handle songs purchased from iTunes, according to Microsoft.
The software maker also hinted that the Zune will have new wireless abilities down the road. "As Zune evolves, your device can be easily updated," Microsoft said. "And with built-in wireless capability in each player, the future is filled with possibilities."
Zune will work in conjunction with a subscription music service that offers customers all the music they want for a flat fee. Although Zune is a Microsoft-designed product, the company confirmed last month that Toshiba will be making it.
The device will also come preloaded with content from DTS, EMI Music's Astralwerks and Virgin, Ninja Tune, Playlouderecordings, Quango Music Group, Sub Pop Records, and V2/Artemis Records.
Microsoft plans to launch a number of accessories, including Zune car chargers, docking stations and gear that will allow Zune to connect to televisions and music speakers. Helping Microsoft with the accessories are many of the same companies that manufacture Apple accessories, including Altec Lansing, Belkin and Digital Lifestyle Outfitters.
See more CNET content tagged:
Microsoft Zune, song, Apple Computer, artist, Apple iPod
208 comments
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Ahh - Doesnt the iPood come in Pink?
Shut ur Pie Hole and do us all a favor...Stick with your sheepish Pink iPod..
Itunes.........SUCKS donkey ears big time. The very fact that it still cant monitor a folder on my server at home after so many versions just kills me. Umm Apple...lots of people have workgroup servers at home. WMP can and has been able to for a long time.
If you have ever had the chance to see a Xbox 360 in full media hub action working with a Windows Media Center PC....you would know that this device will extend the whole media center concept one more step....hence th 802.11 connection. In my house with 5 Windows PC's (one a server) and a 360 with a wireless network....and all over our 30,000+ song library on the server.....Zune will fit nicely.
Add Windows Vista and its great new syncing center software...for WM devices, phones, and music players all using the same sync center application..........just gets better.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.teckmagazine.com/content/view/661/42/" target="_newWindow">http://www.teckmagazine.com/content/view/661/42/</a>
with the iPod reigning supreme. It's not the device, it's the third party support that created this situation.
Brown Power!
Features in zune sound impressive. But again many mp3 players have these features.
A plain, drabby pile of crap.
This is MS finally being honest and you people slam for for it? SHAME!
patent on the scroll wheel for mp3 players?
It's just a round-shaped up, down, left, right button.
Apple recently filed patents for new IPOD interface
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1862" target="_newWindow">http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1862</a>
Looks in all these design click wheel is gone!! or replaced with something new.
lame - Oh and it DOESN'T do video!
As for the wi-fi, three times playback?! Is that it, so basically it's just an extended music store sample courtesy of some unknown person off the street.
I think people are forgetting the point about the Wi-fi, there are gonna have to be an awfull lot of Zunes on your, train/bust/plane/street to make it worth having it activated, right?
I have nothing against it's player but apart from the seemingly poorly done Wi-fi there is nothing new here. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see a 'killer feature' so you've got a big screen, at the same resolution of the iPod so you can just watch it a bit bigger?
Assume I got my parents zune and i also have one...
Then when I visit them I can share my kids pictures just pointing my device.
Or it may be possible to send pictures from wifi enabled phone to your zune!!!
Who knows one day you may just browse music catalog from your zune and buy songs..
I know some of these features are long way to go...i am sure lot is possible..not necessarily with just zune but any wifi enabled device.
At work talking by the copier or whatever, you say, "Fred have you heard the new track by" INSERT ARTIST HERE "you should check it out, get it off my zune later."
The WiFi might be interesting but my experience with PSP was that it was also a battery suck.
Nothing in ZUNE right now that makes me want to run out and sell my VideoIpod. Maybe if I wasn't as heavily invested in ITUNES/Protected AAC music and video I would consider it.
But intial reaction is, Eh.
But instead I got "they had a press conference for this. Conference saying basically prices for storage has come down a lot, so we are going to put in bigger ones and lower the price a bit.
Overall, the player doesn't look bad, but it's not really an innovative product. Creative zen and the ipod do the same thing. I know that the zune has wifi, but other than that ability, it's still nothing particually exciting.
Or maybe it's because they will be shipped by UPS.
Bright primary colors make them stand out too much in crowd.
MS should be applauded for their first attempt at honesty.
Elderly Power!
I hope Microsoft will launch Zune in different colors other than the 3 shown.
The screen looks great though.
--mark d.
...which will be deleted immediately by anyone who can figure out how.
Stop preloading every device I buy with your crap! If you need money, then price the product appropriately instead of taking advertising dollars/promotions from other companies.
I bought my PSP and it came with a UMD of videos, music and games. I could play it if I wanted to. I could also chuck it without wondering what was left behind on my memory stick.
Music is personal. When I'm at the gym with my player, I clip it on on set it down. I'm not fiddling with the menus. On my bus, I hit play on a particular playlist, put my player in my pocket and forget about it.
Wi-fi? Hmmm sounds nice. It could be interesting to buy songs wirelessly on the road, rather than waiting to get back to the computer, but it's not that urgent for me. If it was all that urgent, I suppose music sales via the cellular carriers would be eclisping iTunes by now, but they're not. Wi-fi certainly doesn't work at 70 mph when I'm commuting on my bus or train. But it is an incredible battery hog on portable devices, based on my experience with a Sony Palm handheld with wi-fi built in.
Microsoft Office allows you to do so much with it, but in the end, the majority of users utilize just a small subset of it's feature set. That's why Microsoft always has a hard time getting folks to upgrade to the latest and greatest Office. Folks tend to keep it simple. That's why the Palm handhelds were successful for so long. They performed a simple set of tasks really well. Windows handhelds didn't kill the Palm. Cellphones did. The iPod applies the same strategy. The basics of playing your choice of music simply and easily are covered very well. In the end, that's what most people want.
Also, in light of Apple announcing iPods of every size, how does MS come out with just a single size unit? Isn't the Nano outselling all other iPods? And does Zune run under some subset of Windows? If so, maybe a hard disk drive is a requirement. Maybe we have to wait for our Zune players to boot up. I hope not, but we shall all soon see.
Zune isn't looking like a winner out the box though. Not from what I've read.
People like things simple at first but then they also like cool stuff (younger generation)!!! wifi could be the next generation cool stuff for mp3 players.
You are talking about who will use song sharing!! look at the popularity of info sharing sites like MySpace!!! People will share if they have ability to share. Yes wifi is a hog on battery but look at the technology advancements battery life is continuously improving.
In electronics you build for tomorrow expecting today to catch up!!! and not the other way around.
mean, they are as pathetic as Apple portrays the PC in their
commercials. Kinda like watching the school geek trying to get
someone to dance with at the prom. Gotta feel bad for them and
their ineptness.
If it weren't for monopoly power, they'd have no success at all.
What do you expect from a monopoly that has the richest people in the WORLD that still dress like they're dorky freshman in college?
ZUNE is french for turd (brown).
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Brown! WOW Billy BOB, that innovation for ya! Hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D & advertising for this POS MP3 iPod wannabe and all they deliver is THIS?
Once again standing in Apple's shadow.
Redmond, you have a problem.
Say hello to Billy BOB's new toy ZUNE!
Coming Zune to a store near you!
Get the latest ZUNE TUNES!
Zune, Zune, Zune!
If it looks like a turd, & smells like a turd & sounds like a turd...It must be the new brown Zune!
P.U.
If it's brown, flush it down...
No respectable geek will get caught dead carrying a Zune player that looks like that. Microsoft could give every one of it's employee's one of these and they would still use an iPod or Zen player.
Face it (or don't) this Zune player is f-ugly.
The other colors are fine, but brown? Someone wasn't firing all thrusters.
Robert
Nonetheless, they're a day late and a dollar short. They should have done this three years ago. Now they are not only competing against an entrenched iPod market, but also entrenched cell phones too.
Dumb.
I would go with the former, so I could listen to (commercial free) thousands of new-to-me songs, at a flat monthly fee.
MS is smart to have focused on the real money maker--video is still a niche and destined to remain so until prices come down and content is universally accessible (ie, a Zune download needs to play on my TV at satisfactory resolution, too).
Most posters here are either Apple fanboys (their opinion is biased and irrelevant), or people who think the most important decision was the third (third!!!!) color: Brown. Now, while I agree that brown seems like a very odd choice for a third color, it distinguishes the device from pretty much everything else--that could be an ingenious marketing gimmick. And there are always white and black (which are about the only colors you can actually find all those multiple color choice items in stores anyway!).
--mark d.
Fact is, MS problem is that they are trying to be all things to all people, and as such, no longer have a core compentency. Their strategies are flawed and going nowhere, and the younger demographic (who are more likely to buy mp3 players) are probably going to find Zune boring.
--mark d.
Drop the arrogance, take your minority opinion and go home
1. Price. It will have to sell for less than an iPod or most people (aka non geeks) won't buy it.
2. Size. It looks kinda big. If it won't fit in a shirt pocket, a lot of people won't buy it.
3. Battery life. A big screen and WiFi make methinks the zune may have a very short play time.
In short, Zune may turn out to be like the XBox. A market success that is a major money loser for MS.
1) People won't buy it
2) People won't buy it
3) People won't buy it
Please help me here, cuz (if we take your arguments as truth and
NO ONE BUYS IT), howz itza lika XBOX?
Your conclusion? I don't buy it
;)
This will probably be true. However, like the XBOX, all it needs to do is establish a market presence. The XBOX 360 has a huge market lead, and although the PS3 will probably dominate again, it is already at a major disadvantage and HAS to be a success for Sony's future.
The same IMO holds true for the iPod. It seems to be the main moneymaker for Apple and although there seems to be a resurgence in Mac(book) sales, I don't think that's where the real cash is. As long as MS has the cash cows of Office and Windows, it can afford to lose money on Zun v1, and take a bite out of Apple's market share. Then a bit more with v2 and so on.
I think this is a good thing. While I generally dislike the business practices of MS, I do my main computing on an XP box and it has been reliable. That said, I also use an iBook and a 5G iPod. My computer is also hooked up to a 30" cinema display.
If MS comes up with a winner in Zune, the only choice Apple has is to get of their butts and get really creative. Then, maybe, we will see a revolution in the DAP market and not the evolution so far shown with iPod. While great products, Apple's dominance has obviously allowed them to get complacent.
market of the 3. They clearly aim at the high end users but these
are all stuck with an iPod, MS better prepare themselves for ultra
low sales figures.
Dumping wifi (witch they will eventually do) will have a bad effect
on the users, all 3 of them.
been available in iTunes on computers with zeroconf for years now.
As much as I hope this presses Apple even further via competition,
I don't see this thing catching on.
Wi-Fi is the one advantage in the face of several disadvantages.
And for now, at least, it will be useless without other Zune owners
nearby.
Are Apple fanboys so worried about having competition that they have to dismiss a product befor it even it availiable to buy?