Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Confirms New Music Player
Udo Schmitz writes "It's official now. Reuters confirms the rumors that Microsoft wants to take on Apple's iPod and iTunes. From the article: 'Microsoft Corp. said on Friday it plans to release a new music and entertainment player and accompanying software under the "Zune" brand this year, in a belated attempt to challenge the dominance of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod player ... Microsoft sources said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, is working with J. Allard, vice president of its Xbox team, on the digital media player/software project.'"
If they didn't have Apple to emulate?
Microsoft's "me too" products have not been very successful in the last several years.
An organization that doesn't have the creativity to create something often doesn't have even the creativity necessary to copying it successfully.
--
Are you willing to pay a lot to kill Arabs?
It goes even further than that:
Creative: Zen
Microsoft: Zune
Apple must be somewhat pleased, as I imagine this will take Creative's army of lawyer's focus off them.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Apple not only has a stranglehold on the music player market, they have insane product loyalty, and they own the elusive "cool factor" with the iPod brand.
At this stage, for Microsoft to try and get into this market comes across as desperate and pathetic. Microsoft can't use Windows as leverage in this proposition -- like they could when they killed the well-rooted Wordperfect, Lotus123, and later Netscape -- so the only way Microsoft can make a dent here is for them to do something extremely innovative. That's simply not Microsoft's M.O.
This time next year: MS "Zune" is a distant memory, and iPod/iTunes owns 85% of the online movie rental/download business, and Apple has begun to make serious inroads in the "home media center" market.
boxlight
Well, yeah, pretty much. Microsoft has already largely staked their future on this. It's the cornerstone of Trusted Computing.
KFG
Well, people weren't appreciating the iPod enough, so MS in all their generosity wanted to show people how bad a music player could be.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Microsoft is obsessed with success. They can't stant it when anyone else is a success in a certain market that they aren't a part of, so what do they do? They dive head first into that market without any care for the consequences (eg. XBox, Origami, Windows LIVE, etc).
They are a software company, Google is a search engine/web advertising company. What does Microsoft do? They get into the search engine/web advertising business and directly target Google. They jumped into the game console business because Sony was success at it, and now they are taking on the iPod. I see a disturbing trend here. Microsoft is spreading itself thin here "like too little butter spread over too much bread" quoting Bilbo from LOTR. They gotten into to many different markets and now they are getting into the MP3 player/online music store business. Not to mention they are going up against a seemingly unstoppable powerhouse; iPod+iTunes.
The company is faultering, they are under severe preassure from the EU over anti-trust violations, Windows Vista will now be 2 years late and will not have all of the features they promised, they are loosing millions on the XBox 360 project, and they are swiftly loosing users of their staple software ei; MS Office and Internet Explorer to the likes of Open Office, Firefox and Opera.
Microsoft needs to go back to what they once were, a software company and stop trying to be a do it all business. No one corporation can be in all markets at once, Microsoft is trying, but it will ultimately be their undoing.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
The iPod has been at the top of the heap for a long time now, for good reason. They have created a seamless hardware/software experience that makes digital music easy enough for non gearheads to understand and enjoy. I have a 10Gb iPod and a shuffle, and use both all the time. They're excellent products, and they've changed the way I listen to music. In fact, the RIAA has even made more money off of me than they would have before, because I buy more music now.
Apple has done a lot right with the iPod/iTunes combo, but it's not a perfect combination just yet. Managing libraries across different computers and different users isn't as easy as it should be, for example. But in a larger sense, I get a bit nervous any time a single company dominates a market. Microsoft's operating system dominance has helped in many ways, but has also arguably hindered to an even larger degree. After it gobbled up Macromedia, Adobe is pretty much the only commercial game in town for graphic design software, Quark being the lone holdout of note, and they're essentially a one-product company. I don't like shelling out big bucks for Adobe product updates as I wonder if their prices would be cheaper and the software would be better if they had some serious competition.
The same is true for Apple. They've done an excellent job so far, and I want them to keep improving the iPod/iTunes combination. They *need* competition to keep them hungry, and when they're hungry, it's better for consumers like me.
I don't think Microsoft will be able to unseat Apple from the digital music throne, but if Microsoft blows this one it won't necessarily be beneficial for the digital music market in the long term.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
According to this article, the music service and player will be incompatible with Microsoft's own PlayForSure format. So, Microsoft is planning to open a music store that sells music that is not only incompatible with the market-leading iPod, but also with every other mp3 player on the market today.
Does this strike anyone else as completely insane? With Napster, Yahoo, Creative, SanDisk, etc. already losing money competing with iTunes/iPod, does Microsoft really believe it can come into the market at this late with yet a third proprietary format and gain any traction at all? Is this move another sign of their arrogant belief they can do in every other market what the did in the PC space? Or, is it just desperation?
Does anyone here on Slashdot believe they can succeed with this strategy?