Zune challenges iPod

They call it the iPod killer. The Zune, now in its fifth week on store shelves, is Microsoft's answer to Cupertino-based Apple's immensely popular portable music player, the iPod.

[zune]

the zune is a huge hit. you can visit the zune forums here for more details

http://www.zunemax.com/forum/

[incredulous-in-B oston]

zune wrote:

the zune is a huge hit. you can visit the zune forums here for more details
http://www.zunemax.com/forum/

Are you folks paid by Microsoft? Most of the stuff here is marketing fluff with no hard news reporting on how the Zune is ACTUALLY doing. And from my perspective, its a major, royal FLOP. The emporer has no clothes here folks.

Take a look at Zune's rankings on Amazon.com ...which DOES post this hard data...it's falling like a greasy lump of coal!

[bbby foot joy]

i think i is the coolest thing in the universe i cant wait till i get one for my birthday on 3/25/07

[think----]

If you don't have a zune you are only going off of what people have said or what you have read. Expetaions on one hand and reality in the other. And it all sounds good but it is still the first run for sune, remember what the xbox did when it first came out, things need to be refined for the market wait about 6 months and tell us what you think then.

[Walter E Wallis]

My palm pilot holds all my favorite tunes. Now if I could just figure how to play them.

[Adwar]

That's good news for us. We can get the better price of the music player from the huge rivalship of the Apple and Microsoft.Ha ha.

[Walter E Wallis]

I only hope that all the download systems put more money in the hands of the artists and reduce the influence of record companies on the music scene.

[Alan Smith]

The Zune is dead on arrival! I tried one at local computer store. It was BIG, and CLUNKY; the interface was horrible (6 buttons with confusing screens). The flat matte color was cheap looking and the rubber feel was not so great. It was a pain to switch from vertical to horizontal for videos. I can't use it as a hard drive; the Zune store has no videos or podcasts. And the WiFi features are really disabled. Why would I buy one? It was a typical BAD MicroSoft experience.

Instead, I bought my wife an iPod shuffle (no. 3 on the Amazon.com list). I got the last one at my university computer store. iPods were selling like crazy here. The campus computer store had sold only one Zune to some faculty member for his/her research. It seems that all the college students know what a good product is and what is not. My 20 year old son and 18 year daughter thought the Zune was lousy! It seems that consumers vote with their dollars. Where is the Zune on Amazon.com ? Seven Apple iPod products in the top 25. The Zune is way down the list. Black Zune at no. 48. White Zune or brown not even in the top 100. The iPod travel adapter is a better seller than the black Zune.

The shuffle is a great small MP3 player. Apple gets it, MS just copies and does a poor job at that!!

[Jeff]

OK, I'll admit it. I have a Zune; got it early for Christmas and absolutely love it. It's not perfect; far from it in fact. Most of the comment's I've seen obviously come from people who have obviously not spent more than five minutes actually using it. The comparisons with it's sales versus the iPod are pretty silly. The iPod is a fantastic established product and the Zune is a fantastic new product. Even if the Zune was far better in every way people would still continue to buy the iPod. It's the opposite of the Windows vs. Mac argument. There is no doubt that the Mac is superior in just about every way (no I don't own one but probably will this summer). So, does the fact that Windows outsales the Mac something like 1,000 to one mean Windows machines are better than Macs? Kind of a silly premise, huh?

For me, the decision was simple. iTunes does not offer a music subscription service. That is the iPod's "Achilles heel", at least for people who want to legally load up 30GB of music. Sure, there are people with CD libraries that big but what about new music. I used iTunes for a while, but $.99 per song got pretty expensive just to see if I liked something. If the iPod and iTunes had offered a subscription service I would own one now. Watch what happens, Apple will be forced into offering one within the next 18 months. Music sales on iTunes are already down and will continue to decline as more people "discover" the simple alternative.

Last thing... I know the subscription service has been available for some time through "Plays For Sure". However, it was a flawed execution and simply too complicated for the average computer user. I'm a long-time computer programmer and had difficulty getting my Creative Zen Micro to play nice with Napster. The Zune player/service changes this and makes the subscription service as easy to use as iTunes.

One more last thing (really)...
I work at a large facility with a lot of technically oriented people and they have all been very impressed with my Zune. One guy even traded in the iPod he bought for his son when he saw a movie playing on the and I explained about the subscription service. He simply didn't know something like that was available. Maybe MS needs to do a better job of marketing that feature of the Zune.

[Alan Smith]

I spent 30 minutes with the Zune and came away uimpressed. Of course it will be compared to the iPod. That is the problem. MS needed to have built and delivered something completely different and better than the iPod. It just copied it. When you look at the Zune, it is okay, but when you compare it to an iPod, it is lacking.

The MS Windows arugument to the Mac OS argument does not work. MS makes 90% of its money from Windows by packaging the OS to vendors selling their PCs. It is not an open market decision that has sold many copies of windows. The situation is that MS cannot apply the same strategy to the Zune. OEMs do not have to fear being cut from the Windows discount from bundling it with their PC. The MP3 market is and will be decided by direct buyers and OEMs.

The argument that MS is in for the long haul has three main fallacies:
1. That Apple will sit still while MS comes out with Zune 2.0 and Zune 3.0 to come up to the level of todays iPod, & iTunes. It is a constantly changing scene.
2. MS did not produce an iPod killer. It is very apparent that MS copied many features (the subsription service, radio and Wi-Fi geatures that the Zune have are not enough to truly set it apart and be innovative). This will hurt MS as it is seen as a company that does not innovate. Most software would engineers prefer to work for Google or Apple. It is common knowledge that MS is having a brain drain. This happened to IBM.
3. How long can a company throw money at a product without making a profit? Yes, MS has deep pockets, but shareholders want the MS stock to increase. This is something that MS stock has not done. It has been stagnant for 5 years.

[Alan Smith]

I left out a word in the last sentence of the second paragraph above. It should read, "The MP3 market is and will be decided by direct buyers and NOT OEMs."

[James]

Seriously, this news story is verbatim out of MS promotional materials. Do a little research people! A quick google will reveal that this hyper-DRM'ed, defective-by-design device is most definitely doomed. The reasons why and the dramatic details would make for an interesting story.

[Johnny]

look yo, i already did a ton of research between the zune, ipod or creative zen vision and when i say research, i mean a lot of research yo. but anyway after i kept narrowing it all down and down and down and down, it finally all easily came down to the ipod video yo!

[ace]

wait 1 min wat about the portability ipod pretty good i dont know about zune but if ur in class u dont want a huge bump in ur pocket (zune).