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Wal-Mart Leaks Zune Price
nieske writes, "Engadget reports that Wal-Mart accidentally published online the intended price of the Microsoft Zune; the iPod rival would apparently retail for $284. The price was quickly pulled from the Wal-Mart site. Reports say that Microsoft was flustered when Apple dropped the price for the iPod 30 GB, previously $299, to $249. BetaNews states that 'undercutting the iPod is a major goal of Microsoft's upcoming effort.' Will Microsoft respond to Apple with another price drop?"
It seems that the Zune has a use after all, as a method to get Apple to reduce it's prices on the iPod.
How will Microsoft survive where they can't rely on piracy and an existing monopoly to gain marketshare (office), can't sell the hardware as a loss leader (xbox), and can't rely on others to sell it for them (windows).
Does this have a successful precident for Microsoft?
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Microsoft can make the Zune as cheap as they like. What made the iPod successful was how easy it was to add songs to it. I haven't seen the software that's going to be shipped with the Zune but I'm guessing it'll be similar to iTunes.
What I'm interested in though is how Microsoft are going to convert existing iPod owners over to their side. Aren't they offering something like the ability to download (for free) all the songs you have in iTunes onto your Zune from the Zune Marketplace, or are they going to copy all the existing songs from iTunes / iPod onto your Zune?
Summation 2
So, the question is, will MS do with zune as they did with the xbox and sell it at a loss just so they can overtake apple.. ?
also, why is a zune price leak in the apple section?
MABASPLOOM!
Is this dumping?
I'm serious. With their huge cash reserves, Microsoft could enter the market in toilet seats tomorrow, price them at 99 cents, drive everyone else out of business, and drive up the price to $10,000 a seat.
We've already seen them put Netscape out of business by giving away the browser, so can Apple (or any other manufacturer) cry 'foul' and accuse Microsoft of dumping? What are the laws in this situation?
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
They have to be careful. If it is cheaper than the iPod, that could add to it's image of being a knockoff. It's like wine. People look at all of the bottles on the shelf and don't have any idea what the difference is, but their pretty sure that the $40 bottle is better than the $6 bottle, even though that isn't really true at all. Put yourself at best buy. The 30GB iPod (which you've heard of and seen before) is $249 and this Zune thing is $229. You quickly scan the specs, see that they are about the same, and figure that this Zune thing must just be a cheap knockoff. On the other hand, if it were $259, you might ask a salesperson what the difference is.
All of this is moot anyway - they went after the wrong market, IMO. The most popular iPod is the tiny little Nano. Unless they were trying to create a niche product, I'm not sure why they didn't go after the biggest market.
Who runs MS, anyway? Who thought it was a great idea to compete with their licensees? And then against Apple's iPod, where all others have failed? If I was a shareholder I'd be furious. If I were a licensee I'd be furious. If iPod sales ever go flat (don't they have to at some point?), Apple might get a nice reception to an offer to license FairPlay now... a real "plays for sure".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I don't know what it means in English, but check out what it means in Canadian French :)
We can only hope. They often just get modded "Troll", though. Really the whole problem with the moderation system is that the mods don't use it to moderate the discussion, they use it as a voting system. It's really just digg with another mechanism. Slashdot's mod system is really just a fancy thumbs-up/thumbs-down. The main advantage is that I can go into the prefs and change how each item affects the score. In your case, I recommend changing the "redundant" setting :) I tend to give each "positive" score double the weight of a negative score. This still filters out the true trolls without totally squashing unpopular viewpoints (such as Windows doesn't really crash much, or Bush actually has a point).
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
For the same reason the iTunes Store doesn't really make much profit: the recording industry takes too much out of the revenue. the iTunes Store only exists to sell iPods, and I can't see Microsoft's store being any different.
Two words: X Box. Four more words: Two billions dollars lost. Including game sales.
Microsoft can bleed money, and not even notice it. More than that, the COGs of the Zune will fall, and, unlike the XBox, but like the XBox 360, Microsoft will be able to recoup those losses later on. MS is many things, but unwilling to learn from its mistakes is not one of those things.
Both companies will be making similar products at similar cost (using cheap labour etc). Apple has to maintain profitability on the iPod since it's a core Apple product, whereas Microsoft can afford to sell at cost or maybe a small loss in order to put strain on Apple. I would have thought this was illegal, but since it's standard practice in the console industry I'm not so sure. I think Apple is reorganising its iPod product, though. The Nano is being repositioned as the bread-and-butter line with the iPod being sold as a sort of 'premium' product. The Zune will come off second best to the Nano since most people don't want to socialise with their technology (mobile phones aside :P). An MP3 player is something you use when you are going somewhere, at the gym, bored or whatever, and not something you want to play around with infront of your friends swapping DRM'ed files and watching video. The raison d'etre for a digital audio player is... music, and by all accounts the Nano does this well. It's difficult to add value beyond that.
In short, the Zune has arrived just as the HDD iPod has left the stage.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
When the Zune is introduced, it will have a new DRM system, incompatible with the PlaysForSure that Microsoft has been pushing and that many of their partners in WMA are using (from the Wikipedia article on Zune). This is similar to Apple's iPod, which uses FairPlay DRM, which Apple won't license to anyone. The Zune won't support Apple's DRM, and the iPod won't support Microsoft's.
So, Apple and Microsoft will both be pushing their own portable music players, with music being sold in formats that play nowhere else but in their own products. Hmm, where have we seen that before? Of course, neither of them is going to support the open and superior (in terms of audio quality) Vorbis.
What's funny about it is that Apple, which one one side professes to be all supportive of open source and open standards, has been beating Microsoft at the lock-in game on the other side. I guess that battle will soon get a second round.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I can't say enough about my 30G Video iPod. I love that thing! It is by far the most useful little device I've ever purchased. I like the interface (for the most part) - it intuitive and easy to use - even my mother and father can use it. I use it everywhere - programming at work, in my Jeep, at home doing choirs, biking, hiking - you name it. I'm soon to buy a clock radio that uses my iPod to wake me.
;)
I like its weight, too. It seems sturdy enough though I have a rubber case for it with a neck strap that's long enough to fit in my shirt pocket. Although, I did have to stop turning the volume down while it was still in my shirt pocket - spinning a finger around my shirt-pocket-area did elicite a few strange looks (which were promptly explained away - much to their relief!!).
As for other players...I'm sure they have their pros and cons over the Apple iPod; but, I've grown to attached to Apple's product why should I change? I'm satisfied with iTunes as it works pretty damn well on my systems.
I'm not a serious Microsoft basher - they put food on my table - but why should I toss all my money at MS when Apple seems to have hit a home run?
It would be good that MS eats Apple part if only to show how evil DRMs can be.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Yes, and we all know how Microsoft ran up the price of Internet Explorer once Netscape was out of the picture...
Yes we know, and for those skeptical people out there, here it is : they ran up the price by not paying anymore people on improving Internet Explorer. Which means that before, the price of Windows included the cost of the dev team on IE. After Netscape was out of the picture, the price of Windows didn't include that cost anymore, but was still the same.