Zune Business Dev Executive Moves On

An anonymous reader slipped us a link to the Seattle PI article discussing Bryan Lee's departure from Microsoft. The former business development VP for the Zune has parted ways with the company for personal reasons now that 'Zune was launched and on track'. This means that J. Allard will be stepping up into fill the void. Allard was instrumental in bringing the first Xbox console to market, and was the VP in charge of technical matters for the Zune. An analyst with Gartner is quoted as saying this move means not all is well in the land of Zune, but a rumour on the CrunchGear site indicates that Microsoft is planning on stepping things up later this year with a Zune cellphone. A smartphone designed to compete with Apple in that market it would seem, despite whatever problems may be going on, the company is still rather fond of the strange little brown device.

Comments

Zune cellphone?

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Jeezus. Is there any single market that Microsoft WON'T try and get its grubby little hands into? I don't really get why companies like Microsoft need to invade every single market they possibly can for no other reason than "because it's there". They're like some sort of cancer. I wish they would just focus on making their OS and dev tools work. Every time my Visual Studio crashes, or my computer reboots without warning, and I lose productivity, I hate them a little more. Not because they are Microsoft, but because all their effort into trying squeeze every last drop of money out of every possible market takes effort AWAY from them making their other shit work right to begin with. How long have they been making OSes? You'd think that at least THAT would work right by now...

Maybe my coffee just hasn't kicked in yet...

Re:Zune cellphone?

[drew]

Shareholder Return.

Shareholders (typically) expect that, if you've grown your revenues at a certain rate in the past, you'll continue to grow at that rate. If you exceed your past growth, your stock value goes up. If you fall short, your stock value goes down. Microsoft saturated the Operating System a long time ago. Most of Microsoft's OS revenue comes from people buying new computers. Well before Win2k, computer buying had slowed down to the point that the vast majority of people buying new computers were replacing old computers. Where do they have left to grow? Compared to the Win95/98 days, where many people bought new versions of Windows to install on old computers that didn't have it yet, and many more people were buying their first Windows powered PC, there isn't much room for Microsoft to grow in that department anymore. (At least in the U.S. which also explains their recent intense interest in developing countries) Likewise with Office suites. As Microsoft (or any company) saturates their current market(s), they have to grow (or buy) their way into new markets in order to continue growth.

Zune cellphone?

[MightyYar]

but a rumour on the CrunchGear site indicates that Microsoft is planning on stepping things up later this year with a Zune cellphone And from the linked article:

That gives Microsoft about nine months to get everything together, an entirely possible feat. Um, no. 9 months is not enough time to bring a phone - even a simple one - to market. The only reason that we know about the iPhone is that Apple had to submit the design to the FCC for approval 6 months in advance. That would presumably give MS all of 3 months to develop this rumored phone. If they somehow managed to get something to market in that time, it would be utter crap! Unless MS already has a phone in the pipeline, or they are intending to use an existing hardware platform like they did with the Zune, this can only be a rumor.

As for the feature set, streaming video from the Xbox? Huh? You mean on your local network? Gee, that's useful. Isn't the Xbox already hooked up to a TV? If they mean from outside the network, that would require either some killer cell phone bandwidth or some way for the Xbox to be available through the firewall... not sure how that would work as a practical matter, and would you really want to leave your Xbox on all the time and exposed to the internet?

Then there's the business aspect... you've just finished alienating all of your "Plays for Sure" licensees, now you're going to alienate all of your Windows Mobile licensees? Also from a business perspective, going up against Apple's iPhone without the development time and polish, only to be released to a skeptical press in love with anything Apple produces... no thanks.

I'm sorry, this rumor just doesn't seem plausible.

Re:I hate to retread the "old news" moniker...

[morgan_greywolf]

...but does anyone else find it a bit scary how you can read news like this on your Wii at night Hmm. I didn't actually know you could read news on a Wii. I'm seriously going to have to get me one of these things. Really.

Anyway, I see/hear about a lot of news on a variety of news channels like CNN, NPR, Google News, etc. and then see it on Slashdot later or the next day. I chalk it up to the format: Slashdot reports news that other sites have already published, as submitted by its readership. Nothing new, really. A lot of Slashdotters probably have Wiis given how 'cool' many /.ers think they are, so it wouldn't surprise me to see Slashdot picking up a lot of stories that appear on a Wii.

*shrug*

Gaining Zune Marketshare

[Nom du Keyboard]

If Microsoft wants Zune marketshare, they should be basically giving it away. You're not going to remove iPod's cool factor with a device that costs as much, has the Microsoft name associated with it, and offers marginal, if any, improvement. And sharing crippled, DRM-laden, play-limited, songs wirelessly just isn't enough more. Your brown faux iPod just isn't going to impress your friends enough for what it cost you.