Microsoft has built the world's largest software empire by doing many things right (and a few things wrong). It has managed to branch out into other markets like the game console business, but ultimately, it's a business software company. Always has been. Always will be.
It is therefore with some amusement that I read on ZDNet about Microsoft's corporate hand-wringing over whether to continue to develop and sell the Zune, and what that might look like.
Microsoft should not be in the Zune business. Period. No amount of Apple envy should have taken Microsoft into the Zune, and its best option is a quick exit.
Let's face it: Microsoft is not cool. That's reality. It's an enterprise software company and, however much one may dress up enterprise software, it's still not sexy or cool.
Billions of dollars in profit, however, is cool, and Microsoft has that in spades. Sure, it risks losing out on the digital-entertainment revolution by not having a music delivery platform, but there are other ways to get into that business without trying to beat Apple at its own game.
In the Zune, Microsoft is playing to Apple's strengths. In products like SharePoint and SQL Server, it plays to its own. Microsoft needs to find a way to get into the consumer market without drowning in Apple's wake. The Zune is not it.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer spots - or, rather, doesn't spot - the Zune in Microsoft's new advertising for that uber-social iPhone "competitor." According to Zune marketing director Adam Sohn, this is on purpose: "We're trying to funnel people from the software side....You don't have to buy the device immediately."
Huh? So, Microsoft is trying to play up all the things you can do with the Zune...without buying a Zune. That might be a better strategy, since it turns out that not many people want to do buy a Zune, regardless of the price. CNET's Matt Rosoff tries to put a brave face on Microsoft's recent focus on the Zune software, rather than the Zune device, but it fails to convince.
What can you do with the Zune desktop software without undergoing the shame of carrying a Zune around? Things like music discovery, which, unfortunately, Apple also provides through its Genius service in iTunes. In other words, Microsoft is playing catch-up, and it's unlikely to catch up.
Let's face it: the XBox excepted, Microsoft is a much better software company than it is a hardware company. But mobile is a game where it's still critical to own the entire experience, hardware and software, which is why Microsoft does so poorly against the iPod and iPhone, and Apple continues to dominate.
Best to get back to those dull, gray corporate desktops, Mr. Ballmer. With 90 percent-plus market share, you can afford to be "social" in the enterprise in a way that the Zune never has been.
When I see things like Microsoft's newest Zune, I actually feel pity for the company. Where Microsoft is good, it's great. But where it's an also-ran, it stinks. The Zune is a product that never should have been born. It adds nothing to the industry.
Except a nifty "community website":
The Redmond-based company also announced an online community website for the range, dubbed Zune Social. The beta site allows users to interact with one another and to create user cards, highlighting their favourite and currently playing tracks. However, cards can?t be traded.
The "community," which goes by the name of "John" when he's not online, awaits the social with bated breath.
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