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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.'"
No wireless. More buttons than an iPod. Lame.
In suspiciously coincidental news, Steve Jobs has been seen taking chair-throwing lessons.
John
"Zune"?
It just me or does Zune sound like some OSS dev tool?
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
In keeping with each system's naming conventions:
Apple:
iTunes
Microsoft:
My Zunes
In other words, Microsoft is even ripping off the name, but making it crappier.
Lemme guess... consumer multimedia is Microsoft's house and they're not gonna let Apple take food off their plate.
"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"
Does this mean they'll spend $6 billion on it and end up capturing 23% of the market? Because this team is really, really good at that.
Go Microsoft! Delivering 2003's technology today!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
If they didn't have Apple to emulate?
But I don't believe it 'till Netcraft confirms it
when MS announce they are going to compete with apple in this market, and Apples shares go up?
And it is not a media device, it is a lifestyle device...sheeesh.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
From these guys.
And from their developement tool page:
I wonder how aros.org feels about this?
To come up with a bad name, all you need to do is sit down and brainstorm for a few minutes.
To come up with a really horrbile name, you need to give a million dollars to a marketing firm.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
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?
Microsoft have already done the software on the Toshiba Gigabeat S series... It can be syncronised with an Xbox 360, plays video, has FM support and sells for about the same price as an iPod. It uses a portable Media Center edition.
m l
See the CNET review : http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11396_7-6550266-1.ht
Ah, and has DRM (yeah !)
Daas
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
Oh wait...
"In April 2002, Microsoft's Allchin announced that Longhorn (later renamed Vista) would ship in the second half of 2004."
I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
Zune = fuck (noun) in Hebrew.
My new blog
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
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?