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Why Microsoft's Zune Scares Apple to the Core
BoredStiff writes "Computerworld has an article examining Microsoft's plans to launch a competitor to the Apple iPod, the wireless media player called Zune. The article lists five reasons why Apple may fear the Zune, and why it won't be as easily smacked down as the dozens of mp3 players before it have been. The Zune isn't just a music player, the article argues. Think of it as a portable, wireless, hardware version of MySpace. With the Zune, Microsoft is trying to launch a consumer media 'perfect storm.'" From the article: "Microsoft will make the movement of media between Windows, Soapbox and the Zune natural and seamless. The Zune interface is just like a miniature version of the Windows Media Center user interface and is very similar to some elements of Vista. Apple fans are overconfident in the iPod because Apple once commanded 92% of music player market share, a number that has since fallen to around 70%. About 30 million people own iPods. But Microsoft owns more than 90% of the worldwide operating systems market (compared with Apple's roughly 5%), representing some 300 million people. The company expects to have 200 million Vista users within two years."
All it has going for it over the iPod(except the lovely brown color!) is the filesharing thing, which not only is poorly concieved to begin with, is locked down with overrestrictive DRM and won't even be any useful until there's enough people with the Zune.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I think the article is somewhat too nice towards the Zune, eg they do not mention the problem that even your own unprotected recordings will be forced into a DRM wrapper, preventing them to be shared after three days. That might even make it a breach of license agreement for creative commons licensed music, because they demand that if you give a track to someone else, that person has to be able to pass it on, impossible with the Zune.
But more interesting the five points why Apple should be scared:
1. Microsoft is hatching a consumer media "perfect storm."
The argument is that Microsoft will leverage any installed base they have (Windows, Xbox, Soapbox) and due to a similarity with the Windows Media Center user interface and Vista will have a strategic advantage. Also their 90% share in operating systems vs 5% for Apple [I think it's even less than that] 2. The Zune is social and viral.
The article claims that the world has changed since the introduction of the iPod, obligatory citing anything with the Web 2.0 label as social and viral and therefore claiming a demand by todays youth to be able to share immediately anything, making Zune's WiFi hip and the iPod old fashioned.
I guess that is the only real argument here, but nothing new. Microsoft failed to leverage their installed base before, eg with Smartphones, where they failed miserably even though the syncing with Outlook is so important. And the 5% of Apples market share does not seem to be a problem, the majority of iPod buyers already use it with windows
Maybe, but I doubt it. Let's remember that P2P was big long before the iPod and iTMS, they introduced a business model that got accepted by people that were used to get everything for free due to it's ease of use. Due to Zune's DRM restrictions there will be no widespread sharing on school yards, so even if the world would demand to return to the early Napster days, the Zune will not allow this.
3. Zune may have more programming.
The pick on Apple launching with videos only from Disney as a sign that Microsoft has more support from the movie industry. But as was discussed earlier today on slashdot, this may be simply due to Walmart and soon be a problem of the past. Even worse, if Apple made a deal with Walmart, they might try to push the Zune out.
Concerning other media formats like music and TV shows, as far as I understand basically everybody is currently trying to make deals with Apple as fast as possible to take their share of the cake.
4. Zune's screen is better for movies.
No doubt, that is true, and it will play into Microsoft's hands. There have been a lot of other media players already featuring larger screens, so this alone does not seem to be a reason for customers to switch. But more important might be all the signs indicating that Apple already has a full screen video iPod in the pipeline (their patents for the virtual scroll wheel), so this advantage for Microsoft might soon be gone.
5. Zune is actually pretty cool.
This boils down to taste, and from what I've read in a lot of forums (with a lot of not Apple friendly users), the design, color, DRM are not as cool as computerworld claims. We shall see.
memomo: free web based language trainer DE-EN-ES-FR-IT
They talk as if Microsoft having 90% of worldwide OS market is the reason why Zune beats iPod.But does it matter much? iPod has 70% of the mp3 market anyway even without the 90% OS share that microsoft enjoys.
Why should OS mkt share matter to MP3 player mkt share,unless microsoft does something to hamper the working of iPod on its OS - something it hasnt done till now.
Wincopy
"There are technical reasons that an AM radio can't be done--specifically, it has to have a much larger antenna."
I have a shortwave radio that is smaller than any iPod except for the Nano (and Shuffle). Along with the many bands it receives, it gets AM. Almost all of the case is taken up by the speaker, the visual tuning hardware, and the batteries. I have not opened it up, but I am guessing that the antenna hardware is smaller than a cap to a ball-point pen. Time to turn off the ol Philco in the wooden case. News in from Tokyo: there are miniature AM radios now.
Where were you when the voynix came?
My guess is that the success of the "Zune" (can someone come up with a funny wordplay on this, please?) depends mainly on how quickly the public learns that the much-hyped "wireless sharing" is in fact so crippled that it's almost worthless.
You see, the whole "storm" and "viral marketing" thing is dead in the waters already because a song received wireless can't be retransmitted. In other words: Actual exchanges will be very limited to single songs and local-only. No "spreading". Well, not for songs. I'd be very surprised if it takes more than a month for the first wireless Zune virus to appear.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It's that band where they are upfront about talking all the time instead of pretending to be a music station and then talking all the time.
One of the main reasons everyone says the iPod is as popular as it is that it "just works"..while the pocket pc can do everything that te Zune can do, it isn't as simple to use. Microsoft is trying to get the simple to use thing going with the Zune... I do wish they slap an 80gig hard drive in my xv6700 though... I do see your point..
Is Apple, in fact, scared of the Zune?
Or do Microsoft (and Microsoft Blog Relations reps like Zonk) simply wish Apple was scared?
I note that integrating wifi into a music player is a really pretty good idea. I also note it isn't what Microsoft's done here. All they seem to have done is create a feeble, heavily restrictive music player equivalent of the DS's "pictochat" feature-- which, as any DS owner will tell you, never, ever, ever winds up getting used. If this incredibly limited player-to-player transfer feature is all the Zune has to differentiate itself from the rest of the crowd of mp3 players right now-- and to judge from the lack of even attempted hype over other features, it apparently is-- Microsoft is in big trouble here.
Thought I'd like to point out that Zune probably isn't going to "steal" any iPod customers away. They may be able to get some people that are about to enter the DAP market, but not the ones that are already invested in iPods. The biggest reason, music collection and familiarity with iTunes. iPods don't do so well because of iPods. iPods do so well because of iTunes. You underestimate the ease of use of iTunes for people that are not so computer savvy. Do you honestly think they're going to be able to convert their iTunes collections over to the Zune format? (I believe M$ is offering up some tool to rip off the DRM from iTunes and apply their own DRM. Don't quote me on that. ... And ummm ... wouldn't that be a violation of the DMCA? :) But that's for another day)
.. I just *downloaded* it off iTunes" .. I was like, "downloaded eh? don't you mean, *bought*" .. she didn't understand the difference? :) She obviously doesn't know how to pir8 things, but this is GOOD. It helps legitimize the electronic distribution of music! I freely admit downloading songs all the time. In fact, I have 5 or so CDs on my bookshelf that are UNOPENED, because I've already downloaded the album. I still support the artists by purchasing, and I like to have a hardcopy of it. But no one's gonna stop me from using it the way i want to use it. (You hear me RIAA?)
:) The zune doesn't have much to compete with. However, I am betting they release it in '07, just after the zune launches to quiet them once and for all :) Apple's got some crazy ass distribution and integration going on with their iTunes/iPods/and soon to be released iTV!
I don't personally use any of these music services. I use my treo600 for music still, cuz it's more than enough for me. However, I do have a bunch of non-computer people, and they will not budge from their iTunes addiction. They even buy music off of it.
I had this one friend, we're talking about some song, and she said "Yah
Anyways, yah, my point was, iTunes users are entrenched, and it's a very tough sell to try to switch them. And honestly, there's no feature in the Zune that really is worth making that big switch.
Side note: I'm betting that's why Apple didn't rush out the widescreen iPod video player. They didn't need to.
Exciting times!
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
I have purchased 3 iPods, one for me and the other two for my daughters. I have a huge mp3 collection, but I have also spent at least $300 on the iTunes music store. My Daughters have purchased much more than that. Why would I want to buy another almost $300 music player and re-purchase all those tunes? When my iPod dies, I'll buy the next ipod, the one with the features apple has added to stay competitive with microsoft.
By the way will you be able to move the music from one device to another and burn an unlimited number of CD's? My music is on DVDs, my laptop, my desktop and my iPod. On iTunes all you have to do is change the playlist. In my experience with windows media formats they aren't nearly as unobtrusive as AAC. I can't see apple losing their portable music throne until someone produces a player that is vastly cheaper and doesn't get in the way of reasonable fair use. Apple's advantage is really theirs to lose. But they would have to read from Sony's playbook to do that. Poor quality, lack of features, high prices and restrictive DRM would do it. But I don't see apple commiting suicide anytime soon.
1) Zune will not play back PlaysForSure media.
Rather than build on the 20%+ marketshare of consumers that have PlaysForSure-compatible devices, Microsoft has decided to claw their way back up from a zero percent market share by refusing to implement their own standards.
It boggles the mind. Even if they insist on introducing their own Super-Zune DRM for this device, what reason, technical or commercial, could they possibly have for not playing back PlaysForSure media as well?
There is going to be a great deal of consumer confusion and backlash when people find out that the Microsoft-DRM music they have purchased won't play back on their Microsoft Zune device. Especially after Microsoft spent all this time assuring people that they can just buy PlaysForSure, and not have to worry about confusing codec-DRM issues.
Nothing will be an "iPod killer" until it's as simple to use and straightforward as the iPod is. By that, I mean that even the average parents and grandparents can (and do) use them. Yes, my parents each have their own iPod, my grandparents share one... they love them, and use them all the time without problems. The only other semi-complicated device to come out like this that I can say the same for is Tivo.
Too many people, especially tech types, don't seem to get that it's the simplicity and intuitiveness of the iPod that has made it such a success. Yeah sure, most of us would love to have one device that does it all, but non technical people are too confused by things that try to do that. They want simple, and they want it done well. That's what Apple tapped into.
Who knows? Maybe Zune will be that easy to use. But IME, the addition of all the extra stuff they're trying to push with the Zune will get in the way and confuse the moms, dads and grandparents, and will keep it from becoming as huge as iPods are.
Oh, and yes, my dad even rips DVDs for his iPod. Which shocked even me.. all I had to do was point him to handbrake. He's otherwise completely clueless with computers (which is really sad considering he's worked with PBX phone systems his whole life and can do stuff on those blindfolded).
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
Anyone notice how MANY times the writer references MySpace?
He is trying to RELATE zune to MySpace which has become a tremendous hit among teens and youths. By repeating the references throughout the article, he is making that invisible connection in the reader's subconscious mind.
This is DEFINITELY a PR piece written by Microsoft PR group.
I guess this is one of the first salvo, before they launch the product.
There will be more like it... and we will be inundated with these opinions from these so-called tech gurus....
After reading a dozen such reviews, the teens will think that zune probably is good.
Jester
"First off, it has a big screen.
This is huge!"
Sounds like someone has fallen for marketing obfuscation.
iPod is 2.5", Zune is 3.0", both have a 320x240 resolution. That's a half inch difference and the resolution is the same, so the Zune has chunkier pixels and cannot display any more information.
Also, neither are optimal for extended movie watching. The PSP's 4" screen at 480x272 (16:9) resolution is about the smallest size that is comfortable for a 2 hour movie (aside from the fact that Sony in their infinitely stupid wisdom have hobbled it regular MPEG-4 movie have to be at 320x240 or 368x208 resolution, making the movie less sharp due to upscaling).
I'm just trying to dispell the myth that Zune's launch won't really affect Apple. It will. Profoundly.
That's an opinion, and as such, there's nothing "mythical" about the opposing point of view. You have your opinion, others disagree.
I think the Zune will have basically zero effect on Apple or the iPod. I also think it will have a minimal effect on the market as a whole. This is not a "myth" because none of these events that would prove whether I'm right or wrong have happened yet. It is, simply, my opinion, just as yours is yours.
There is nothing much different about the Zune than every other portable MP3 player to come along and challenge the iPod. It's not even the first big name trying an integrated experience. You apparently have forgotten the Sony "Network Walkman", which despite a long brand pedigree, a huge company behind it and a fully integrated end-to-end experience, fell flat on its face.
The long and the short of it is nobody has proven they can beat Apple at their own game, and many have tried. What makes MS any different? The path to success in dethroning the iPod is not to try to do the same thing Apple does, only better, because that's not possible. It's like starting up a new car company and saying your goal is to outsell the Toyota Camry. You'll never do it.
All anyone can do is try a completely different path. Cell phones, UMPC's, portable game machines, or whatever. None of these have so far been successful enough to put a dent in iPod sales either, but that's the only way the iPod's ever going down. Nobody's ever going to dethrone the iPod by making an iPod knockoff.
I'm saying Apple can't dismiss the Zune (and the coming Microsoft consumer media assault) as easily as the iPod fans out there who mock Microsoft's entry into the media player market.
You want to know another word for "iPod fans"?
Consumers.
They're the ones mocking Microsoft - the very people that buy portable mp3 players. You might want to take note of that fact.
Um, What is Apple Scared of? And how did this tool of a writer make that determination?
I fail to see how someone can make a statement about a company's opinion without asking them.
Perhaps someone should write a counter article about how M$ is scared that Apple
spent time developing products that people wanted to buy and use.
I think they might also be a little scared that Apple is selling a quad core workstation
for less than their nearest competitor.
Once again, the M$ and ComputerWorld relationship has shown it's true colors.
I'm getting tired of reading articles from publications that have idiot writers
that fell in love with Microsoft right out of college (or High School), and
that their main advertising dollars are tied to products spawned from Microsoft.
I think Computerworld should consider firing that writer for Marketing for
a particular company, and providing a one sided biased opinion
of how a company "feels".
Avg. Live Expectancy of a SysAdmin, 45 Years.