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Opening Zune Sales Flaccid
An anonymous reader writes "As 'Black Friday' approaches and consumers line up for the Playstation 3 it looks like Zune has become an afterthought. Despite months of hype, opening Zune sales are only so-so. While Zune did reach the top 10 on Amazon's Top 25 list for electronic product sales on its first day, it quickly fell below the top 15 and continues to drop. Six separate iPod models now outsell it as well as SanDisk's e250 player. In-store sales are not much better."
It was almost as if Microsoft said "Let's throw millions of dollars at a market and see if we can get a piece of it." The fact that it was trying to enter a market that is already flooded with similar products doesn't help. The fact that the Zune is incompatible with Microsoft's music files doesn't help.
This is not to say that Microsoft should stay out of consumer electronics. The Xbox 360 has a good chance of being the dominant console this generation (outside of Japan). The Zune just happens to be a waste of time and money.
Then why is the iTunes store so popular?
Microsoft Money never crushed Quicken
Actually, the story of how the Empire tried to eat Intuit's lunch is quite an interesting one. They pretended they wanted to buy them out, crawled all over the place ostensibly for their "due diligence" for the buyout, and then went off and wrote an app implementing Intuit's product plan for Quicken 4. When Intuit realized they'd been had, they jumped one product generation, and went ahead with what they'd planned to do in Quicken 5. MS Money hit the streets just a couple of months before Quicken got their next version out.
Over the next year or two, MS tried the usual trick of bundling their product with the OS to try to kill Intuit, but that just convinced the customers that MS Money was a throwaway. Also, financial records are something that you REALLY don't want to leave up to a microsoft product. I know accountants who still use Lotus 123 because they don't trust Excel.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Of the 14 million people who bought iPods this quarter (150,000 per day), the vast majority of them couldn't care to purchase the FM radio option, don't care about file formats (as long as it plays their existing MP3s), and don't use their iPod as a generic mass storage device.
Although I rarely use it, I agree that the mass storage feature is nice to have when you need it; I can't image how an MP3 player could ship without it.
Some techies seem to waste a lot of time fretting over issues such as file formats, DRM, and technical specs. Meanwhile, everyone else is too busy enjoying their music to give a rats ass.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
"Soon they will be changing it to 'Goodbye from Seattle'"
If you are Matt Jubelirer, product manager for the Zune project, you are probably Sleepless in Seattle right about now.
True, but that was Taco's first impression. I'd be willing to give h4rm0ny more credit. ;)
2^5
I agree. The other thing I don't understand is that all of the commercials show the Zune with a "Connecting..." screen. I've seen it about 5 times now and all it makes me think is that this thing takes forever to connect! Not how I want to spend my time. You would think they'd at least have one shot of "Transferring Song..." or somesuch.
I must have missed all the articles where Steve Jobs attempted to subvert the creation and marketing of Zune and other competing iPod products in order to maintain the near-monopoly and crush the competition. As far as I know, iPod is successful based off it's own merits, and the dancing silhouettes.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Yes, Zune sales appear "flaccid," but you don't need to resort to Michael Moore tactics to make your point.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...