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How Microsoft Can Make Zune a Success
jcatcw writes "Zune had potential, but 5 months in it barely gets passing grades. According to the article, there are five things Microsoft must change: 1) The built-in Wi-Fi, aka 'the social,' was a bad idea. 2) Tell newbies what it can do. 3) Create a low-end, flash-based player. 4) Push subscriptions. 5) Make it sexy. A Microsoft representative said, about the wireless concept: 'We felt we were addressing the social aspect of music, and the research we've done has shown that people understand the concept that wireless enables sharing ... but the tagline, while provocative, hasn't meant a lot to consumers.'"
Make them out of gold and give them away.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
6) ???
7) Profit
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
1) Copy Apple.
2) ???
3) Profit!
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1 bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, pass it round... Oh, umm...
Well, if you go read the Dvorak article below this one, a device's success is inversely proportional to that douchebag's opinion of the device and it's future.
So get him to hate it and you'll be all set.
They still make those?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
It's the usual shitty grammar in the story summary. "5 months in it barely get passing grades"? Who wrote that, a five year old or a dune coon who's just now learning English? Who edited it and failed to notice this? Probably the same douchebag who posted a story about "Micorsoft" the other day.
I'd love to know what is can do. Tell me more?!
Buy the leading competitor, slap a Microsoft sticker on it and call it 'innovation'?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
...just put an i in front.
that's all it takes to make a product sexy. and, yeah... well... maybe change their logo to a more-fruity-kind-of.
*scnr*
There is a video on Youtube about building "Microsoft iPod". It is pretty much sums up why MS should not even be in music player business.
I'm sorry, but a polished turd is still a turd.
liqbase
In other words, make it an iPod? If MS really wants it to be an iPod killer, it has to beat it in every area, not match it. I think the WiFi was a good idea, but it doesn't have the sexiness or ease of use of the iPod.
I just saw this story: "How Microsoft can make the Zune a Success"
And right below it: "Dvorak to Apple: Stop the iPhone"
Logically, you would need to s/Microsoft/Apple, s/Zune/iPhone, s/Apple/Microsoft, s/iPhone/Zune to have proper Slashdot-conforming headlines
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Wi-fi was a good idea (battery life issues notwithstanding). Crippling it to the point to where it was useless was the bad idea.
If it had useful Wi-fi and the abilty to install Opera on it, I would have bought one.
Nothing wrong with built in wifi...That's a solid feature, if it's not crippled. Imagine being able to really share music with people near you, or to do some limited web-browsing, or, even better, listen to internet radio (if there is any left), if you're near a hotspot.
Crippled as it is, though, it's worthless. It's always the same. Who wants to buy a player that gives you less than other players?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Give it away for free? That may increase their market penetration... maybe. Perhaps pre-load it with porn? nearlygod
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
Blog about it's inevitable failure... he's always wrong, or at least redundant.
Oh wait, he may just be redundant in this case.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
"2) Tell newbies what is can do." Poor english teachers, at the rate we're torturing them today on /. , some editors are going to end up in prison for crimes against humanity...
I suppose we can now answer the question, "What can brown do for you?" with a solid negative answer.
Seriously, though - if they want to make the hardware a success, go find some balls and tell the recording industry they can take their DRM and shove it where the sun don't shine. Once they're done with that, make the thing scream over Wifi. g is good, n is better. Wifi sync. Bluetooth A2DP. Make it play most audio formats - it's not like there's a shortage of ram for the codecs - use the power used for DRM overhead to put in better decoding.
Quit trying to help the content industry screw the consumers, and it might have a chance - take that 11 digit warchest and help make DRM a thing of the past, and make the Zune the central figure in the battle.
Or just satisfy yourself that apple will always be cooler than you, and your products will always suck.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Seriously! I've helped set up two machines for these stupid things. The HARDEST part was updating the friggin OS! First upgrade Windows XP. THEN, you have to update Media Center to a new service pack. UGgghhh!
-Sir Woody Hackswell, the Arch-Fool
Well, 2 and an acronym: NO MORE DRM The popularity of the iPod wouldn't be anywhere near what it has become if not for easily shared music through ripped CDs and pirated music. They just don't get it folks. They refuse to see that their business will get better without DRM.
The market has spoken here. Subscriptions don't appear to be remotely exciting for most consumers. There seems to be only a small minority who want to pay monthly for access to a lot of different music rather than pay once to permanently have access to a specific set of songs.
The article uses NPD's already-discredited research and cites a 10% market share figure.
NPD counts only retail sales from a subset of American-only retailers. This ignores online sales and also excludes a number of Apple sales since MS's channel overlaps Apple in only a few places. It's also susceptible to MS's notorious channel stuffing.
The rest of the article basically discusses features that exist in many other players. Zune isn't even in second place. Why waste so much time and space talking about it at all?
I have a zune, had it for some time now. I do like it, i really do. But it is very frustrating too.
First off, there has been a skipping issue on some units (mine included), a workaroudn for it meant leaving display on 100% of the time, which did wonders for the battery. Plus, at times navigating in its menus, while they were laid out, it would just lag behind your clicks and presses, then suddenly catch up and do everything you did in frustration.
Okay, they had a patch in the works for this, firmware 1.3. Rumor had it would be out yesterday.. it actually did make it out today. But even the execution of this shows carelessness...
For example. the www.zune.net website was down 24 hours tuesday for maintenance. Okay, I understand sometimes you gotta do that, but you're telling me they couldn't put up a mirror? All attempts to do stuff on that day produced an error, and when it did, it would direct you to www.zune.net/support. which didn't come up. You didnt' get the maintenance message even unless you went to www.zune.net (even zune.net failed to do this).
Okay, the patch came out next day, the site's back up. It tells me I have an update. Says downloading... then returns an error message of "unable to update sync settings at this time". calling zune support they have me update the zune software. Same. They have me install zune software on another machine. Same. I told them from the start that I've seen others posting about this on some zune boards. uh-huh. Since I'd redone zune software from their own website, the guy now wants me to instead reinstall it from the original CD, which is lying somewhere in a box in a garage. Most drivers and software should like be obselete by the time you get them, but this is apparently their standard procedure, never mind how that is going to fix what isn't coming through from their website.
I'm still trying to get 1.3 on my zune now, some 10 hours after first trying. Oh, and btw, the patch notes they have for the 1.3 are verbatim copied from the patch notes from 1.2, including the note about how this includes everything from 1.1 and earlier. (as if 1.2 is not included). Again, its like how much care and effort are they putting into this.
Oh, but Zune has exciting things on the way, they announced a pink zune. That will get their cool factor going, no doubt.
Given what microsoft did in the past to people who adopted their tech (playsforsure), I have a real uneasy feeling that they'll release some new hardware that abandon the current zune.
I want to like this thing, I really do. But they make it so hard. I *do* like the zune pass, it makes most of the frustrations worth it for me, given that I'd downloaded what would have been about $6000-$7000 worth of songs directly if I'd bought them. I like not caring which version of a song I get. I like the look and feel of the player. But they find a way to kill it. Its like Isaiah Thomas is running the Zune team. I know J Allard is supposed to be in charge of it now, but is it really his main focus? I haven't seen any drastic changes since they put him back in charge of it, and quite honestly in his shoes I'd be wanting to go on to other things by now anyway.
That's pretty much how I feel about it at this time...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
1. fix the wireless.
Seriously, that's it.
There are some details involved, so I'll be more specific:
add wireless shopping over wifi.
allow wireless transfer of any data file. (music/pics/vids/arbitrary data)
don't add DRM to media that didn't start with it. (seriously: how dumb was that?)
allow wireless syncing and reverse syncing. (moving tunes from the Zune to the PC)
allow the playback of wireless media that isn't done copying (just buffer it up and let it rip).
allow wireless transfers in the background. (while listening to something else, while doing something else, etc)
Do that, and you actually deliver an experience that the iPod doesn't.
The experience the Zune promised but failed at so horribly that it might as well not exist.
oh and it'd be nice if the Zune would mount as a generic USB volume, so it could be used to ferry about and wirelessly share arbitrary data files.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
How does the Zune compare to the Sony PSP, against just the PSP portable media player features?
And overall, which one is the better buy? What if you own an XBox, or if you own a PS3? How about cross-brand, is either portable anything but useless with the cross-brand console?
--
make install -not war
'We felt we were addressing the social aspect of music, and the research we've done has shown that people understand the concept that wireless enables sharing ... but the tagline, while provocative, hasn't meant a lot to consumers.'"
The consumer is all too familiar with incompatible file formats. They also understand the reduced value of restrictions on their squirted tunes. It's easy to notice that this is broken as manufactured. It won't connect to your home network. You can't sync it wirelessly on your home network. You can't access music from a public hotspot... etc. It just doesn't work is why it hasn't meant a lot to consumers. It has a featured connectivity that won't connect. MS didn't even address this flaw.
The truth shall set you free!
Nobody is walking into EBGames to buy music. Why they hell are they trying to plug music players there?
If they'd like to cut some costs, fire the marketoid who came up with that brain fart.
If it's going to be a legitimate music device it needs to be in electronics and music stores,
not game shops taking up space next to the Pokemon trading cards.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
1) The built-in Wi-Fi, aka 'the social,' was a bad idea.
Not at all, just very badly implemented, let users really share music rather than crippling it. This is actually the best selling point of the device as it is the only thing unique about the zune.
2) Tell newbies what it can do.
Hm, this is a poor recommendation, its like saying 'sell more of them'. I think their tagline must be changed ASAP, enter the social just doesn't make sense, as the MS rep knows, I'm sure they are already working on this one.
3) Create a low-end, flash-based player.
The best idea here, remove wifi and hd, make it thinner, add 4-8gb of flash and sell it for $99, that would be awesome.
4) Push subscriptions.
Don't you think they are already doing this, it doesn't matter how much you push subscriptions, if the person doens't have the device why the hell are they going to subscribe. Perhaps give away devices for subscription plans, like cell phones.
5) Make it sexy.
Yes turd brown was a very bad color, it is mute and relaxed and I actually like it, but it doesn't nothing for selling the things, or at least offer all colors including shiney ones, and not just crap brown quake ones.
If Microsoft just made a player that is cheap, reliable, and easy to load songs onto, they would get a lot of average people to buy it. As it is, people looking for a basic MP3 player will be turned away by the not-cheap price and useless features to explain it, as well as the strange name and wacky advertising.
Apple's grip on the market, from its marketing/fad trend, is waning in my eyes. It certainly does not carry the same cool factor anymore, actually, if anything it will begin to work against them. The same people that adopted the iPod early (non-conformists, trend setters) are looking to new and better things now. Where before the iPod did not have to compete much outside of cheer marketing, they are going to face a never ending supply of well backed competition.
Apple's marketing is the reason we care about Apple products. They have among the best marketing schemes in the USA and they have rode it to great success. The iPod was never sold on their specs or capabilities, ever. I have never seen an iPod add that mentioned anything other than the size of the iPod (space and actual size) and that it played video. That goes to show that people bought the marketing, not the capabilities. Now that people are less receptive to their campaign and others are competing directly, the iPod is in for a war that will be fought in the public. Time will tell though, I feel their campaigns are still very strong.
The Zune and Microsoft will have to grow over time and over versions to be a powerhouse in the market. They have a solid campaign, but they entered the market when it was being well-saturated, so they missed the bus of course. Now new mp3 player sales are going to have a much higher percentage of people who are replacing a current player. That is where the Zune will have to make an impact in order to even the playing field.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
"I have a Zune and a 4G color iPod. My iPod sits in the dock on the clock radio we have for it. The Zune is what I take everywhere with me."
And if I ever touch the iPod again, my dad said he'd throw another chair at me.
just MHO here, but the WiFi is possibly the most groundbreaking thing it does and it could be much more.
The problem is MS neutered it so badly that it is simply worthless. Ways to fix? Some of these were mentioned before.
A) Full sync over wireless
B) If a file does not have DRM on it, dont PUT DRM ON IT.
C) Allow people to have a "Sharing" folder or flag. People within wifi distance could then listen to a snip of songs that were sharable and request if they wanted a copy of the song.
D) Allow for an architecture that would let people set up a "broadcaster" to send/sell songs out to those who request them. For instance, at a live local show the band could have a laptop running in the merchandise booth that gives out a free song from the band to whoever has a Zune and is nearby. Maybe giving them an option to buy the album electronically. Places like Starbucks could then also be music retailers selling their music they play electronically.
E) Give people a "listen along" option other than "squirting" a song across. That way if you're doing something like working out with a friend you can listen to the friends play list at the same time they are.
Now admittedly, these won't happen because as has also been mentioned MS would have to tell the media industries to shove DRM requirements up somewhere which makes stuff the same color as some Zunes.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
The best part about that movie is that it was actually made by Microsoft. It was a sort of self-critique, prior to Zune, of "this is how we shouldn't do it."
That's what really does it for me -- they know how mediocre an organization they are, but yet they can't seem to stop being lame.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Is this Microsoft marketing guy for real? "we're looking at an urban, inner city demographic". Huh? Shouldn't they be looking for a suburban demographic - kids w/ lots of disposable money?
5 months in it barely get passing grades.
Shouldn't that be... "gets"?
1. Play for Sure???? Why doesn't the Zune support Microsoft's own standard for DRM'd music? That bolws a lot of trust that I will get to play my music in the future.
2. Work with Windows MediaPlayer. You know like Play for Sure devices do.
3. WiFI sync.
4. Allow me to sync with my 360 content. Why the heck do we have Play for sure, XBL market place, and the Zune Marketplace??????
5. Good car interfaces.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Put an Apple on the back of it.
Oh and make it very easy to scratch.
Actually if they wanted it to be successful they'd make it easy to change the firmware. That's all it would take. It may even be this way but if so I'm unaware of it. Kids like stuff they can mod.
Beer! It's what's for breakfast!
The Zune 1.0 doesn't make money. It's the Zune 3.1 that makes money. Microsoft can afford a few unprofitable years pushing the Zune, XBox or whatever, because of their deep pockets. Eventually they'll get a better mix of product features and bundling with Windows to create something that people will choose. Just like the XBox wasn't a short term decision for Microsoft, instead looking toward the XBox 360 and successors for the real revenue stream. When dealing with Microsoft you have to remember that they don't make a killer product right out of the gate. They take what they have and build and improve to the point it becomes good or at least good enough. The first versions of IE were a me-too product. However, making it good enough and strapping it to Windows ensured its victory in the browser wars. Declaring Microsoft is "loosing the war" because generation 1 Zunes aren't selling great misses the fact that Microsoft will continue plugging away at it until the Zune (or whatever it morphs into) will be market dominant at some level.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
I have yet to have seen a zune beyond a store front. I suspect that they are selling far worse than what is reported.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
ZuneLinux
The Zune's hardware is much too nice to be sullied by the drm-laden software some insane monkey decided to fling at it.
All MS has to do is change their goals for the Zune to "Generate lukewarm response from the general public despite millions of dollars in lame ad campaigns" and they'd be a raging success.
It's "PLOAF," not "P-LOAF." Ask about it.
The WiFi is a fine, if not great, idea to add to a music player. The way they marketed and implemented it is crap.
"Tell newbies what IS can do"
What "is" can do?!?
I'm still trying to figure out what the MEANING of "is" is!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Seamlessly works with Vista out of the box and has no porn in the setup installer error image. /Sarcasm
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
The Zune is a "me too" product, and a crippled one at that. It has one clever feature (WiFi), but is just not compelling against all the other players that are out there.
My MP3 player is an RCA Lyra. I don't need any special software: just plug it in to any computer that groks USB Mass Storage. I can play any MP3 I want on it. I don't have to screw around with licenses, and I don't have to screw around with locked-down encrypted file formats. Hell, I can (and do) use entirely open-source software to talk to it.
Why would I want to mess around with something that costs more and does less?
...laura
I disagree on some points:
- Open the wifi completely up - drop the timebombs. People who share copyright info are subjective to...well, the mess we already have when they do it with laptops and phones.
- Allow cloudcasting, where folks can listen to you live
- Bring on the live recording components. Accessorize!
- Drop "squirt". Just drop it. It hurts my ears.
- Sexy means much much more design work. Milky brown is not a color.
- Hit the market pricepoint lower, selling a stripped version
- Drop all DRM. Do NOT create a music service for it, but merely play in the existing markets: people's owned music.
- Bring the APIs! Open it up!
my last suggestion:
- Sell of the whole damned thing to an external company and let them worry about it. Then get back to work innovating.
Check your GRAMMAR. Maybe Firefox needs little green squiggles in s?
/. every here and there, but twice in one article?
;)
First, tense:
Zune had potential, but 5 months in it barely get passing grades.
I'm used to one little typo from
Tell newbies what is can do.
This bothers me, especially when the quality of articles isn't that great - it makes me want to stop reading sometimes. I hope you guys are using the 'Preview' button, and being editors I'm sure it couldn't hurt to have a friend proof-read articles before they go out (I mean, its what you are supposed to be doing for the people who submit articles, but...). It wouldn't hurt to reword that list, maybe even into a sentence even - its pretty choppy but thats just me splitting hairs now
> The built-in Wi-Fi, aka 'the social,' was a bad idea.
Not completely. Let the user sync with their music collection on their PC via WiFi. Let someone who likes purchasing music on-line (or who uses a subscription service) obtain their music via any hotspot (this will require built-in SSL, but so what). As far as using it for 'squirting' music to people - yeah, that WAS a bad idea. And as for "Welcome to the social" - hire a new PR firm.
[Insert pithy quote here]
The ipod is low on features, but high on style. That just shows that features are not what make this kind of product. The ipod is iconic - you really struggle to find any way to dislodge that.
MS has always been high on features/low on style (eg. Office).
MP3 players are not technical products. They are fashion statements. What sane kid will walk around with a Brown Zune Turd in their pocket?
If MS has any sense they'll can Zune. If they make Zune2 then they'd better come up with something far better. Perhaps something based on http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7994750806.html
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Make it out of softer plastic.
Make it wedge shaped.
Sell it for 99 cents.
Perfectly good door stop.
Spray paint it white.
Rename it "iBob"
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
I can't really think of many things that they actually created from scratch. I dare you to name five.
Surely you jest. Here are five examples of innovation in the purest forms imaginable:
1. Strategy
2. User-friendliness
3. Simplicity
4. The Future
5. Entertainment
"Your Favorite Band Sucks" - I think that's why the networking stuff didn't work so well - I just don't much care what other people are listening to. If there was a statistical matching program that matched me up with other people that liked a lot of the same music, then we might have something, but I really don't want to be bombarded by top 40 all the time.
If Microsoft is serious (and they really aren't, or aren't trying hard enough) about killing the iPod, there's only one thing they need to have: free music. As in free beer. Most people could care less about DRM, it's all about the price. Make it free, and people will drop their iPods in droves. And not free for two days and then it disappears--free, period. If it is true that Apple makes money only on the hardware (and I don't think that's the case anymore), then it's all about selling the Zune; the music is just the cost of doing business.
How to make it free?; that's Microsoft's issue, not the consumer's. Until then, I (and everybody else) am keeping my iPod.
Except that it doesn't enable sharing! At least not in a timely fashion and not without encumbering it with the most restrictive DRM ever.
The sharing idea is nice, but I wonder if it would have been more effective if it were implemented using Bluetooth -- allowing a Zune to essentially act as a wireless headphone to another. This way you can hear what I'm hearing and I can play DJ for a group of friends (if I had any). If you like a song you can tag it and download/purchase it later. This seems much more social and no one needs to get squirted.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
At it's core, the original concept for the Zune wasn't a bad one. It's the implementation of those ideas that have brought about failure.
First, design and develop the product from scratch. One of the reasons the iPod is a success is because Apple is involved in every aspect of that device's development. First, Apple has a clear design concept. Keep things simple. It drives the look and feel of both the hardware and software. Secondly, everything is done within a single company and there is obviously open communication between the various departments responsible for it's development. This ensures the software works seamlessly with the hardware. It's why the device is so easy to use. I'm convinced this is why a true competitor to the iPod doesn't yet exist.
So this was Microsoft's first problem. They took an existing Toshiba MP3 player, gave it a new shell and had to develop software around that. They should have set up a partnership with a manufacturer and had them build a device around their own specs. That's obviously a lot more expensive, but if they want to seriously compete with the iPod they can't compromise.
As I've mentioned, Microsoft limited by the fact that they were working around an existing device. But I think they made a few design mistakes. I actually thought the brown version wasn't too bad. But I do agree, brown isn't usually on the top of anyone's list for colors they'd like to see electronics come in.
I imagine the decision was made to go with unconventional colors to steer away from everyone trying to knock off the iPod's color scheme. I do tend to find it annoying that everyone just copies what Apple does. Apple's products look nice, but there's untold potential for different and equally attractive designs.
In general I thought the Zune was attractive. But it doesn't quite have the elegance of an iPod. Interestingly, although it isn't really much larger than an iPod. But it looks gigantic whereas the iPod looks smaller than it is.
And of course, another big flaw in the Zune is limited functionality. Well, it's more of a problem that Microsoft promoted the hell out of some features, like WIFI, but then crippled the hell out of them with DRM crap.
Contrary to what Apple's marketing department claims, Apple doesn't really innovate. They don't try to implement all the latest features into their products. However, I think that's what makes them so successful. What features their products do have work extremely well and are easy to use. Apple knows how to keep things simple.
Given how Microsoft does things I don't think this is a problem they'll ever be able to overcome.
If they ever decided to make something like this, in which the WiFi could be used to access the hard drive in the Zune, for use as a small portable NAS (for everything from wirelessly syncing media to it, to showing up in My Computer as a wireless hard drive for transferring data), along with a bit of Outlook integration (contacts and email reading), I'd be there. It should be technically capable of doing all this now, it just needs the software and a bit of vision.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
I got to go take a Zune.
The market has spoken here.
You're right, it has spoken: there's a massive market for streaming subscription music. See all of those "muzak" satellite dishes on every 7-11 or Taco Bell in the country? Hello! XM and Sirius want that market now, and that's exactly a market that Rhapsody, Yahoo, Urge or Zune can fill that iTMS cannot. I went to a furniture store in SF the other day and noticed the owner was streaming his music from Yahoo.
I use Rhapsody because I'm coding at a computer all day. If I bought all of the songs I listened to on Rhapsody, I'd spend thousands, easy. And Real is not doing bad with this business, Rhapsody has something like 1.5m or 2m subscribers, so $20m-$30m a month. A quarter bill per year.. that's not a bad business at all.
First, MS can remake the Zune to be cheap. An iPod nano is $150. MS has to make them them for $00.
Second, given them away with a two year subscription. Kids often want the top 40 music, whatever their friends have, and I often see them paying a few dollars for a bootleg copy. Set the subscription to $10-$15 a month, with maybe a $25 setup. A bit more than others, but the kids may pay for because there is only a small upfront charge.
Make the wireless worth something. Many kids do not have computers, but can connect to wireless networks as a guest. All subscribers should be able to share music off their zune, and all subcribers should be able to download new music off any open wireless networks.
I bet with proper DRM, downloading off of Yahoo! would also be a plus.
The big problem with MS is all they can do is copy. Anything innovative or ground breaking is simply too risky to their bottom line. Everyone says "MS missed the ball on the 'net", but in fact the net is extremely destructive to their fragile business model, and things like the net and other modern tech really is a challenge to their bottom line.
The Zune could have been innovative if it did not simply copy the iPod, limited of course by the fears of the MS executives.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I humbly suggest that they call it the IE-Pod, and give it away for free, with the purchase of a music site subscription. Oh, and make sure it's incompatible with iTunes too.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
Such a capable player in terms of hardware, but you can only use the WiFi to share songs if you know someone else who has a Zune!?
Granted there may be some security aspects to having a player which can synchronise over the network or do rudimentary web browsing even if it's just to browse the URGE store, what about the ability to plug it right into your digital camera and offload the photos, does it do TV output like the iPod, could it play standard MPEG4/AAC video (like the iPod) rather than WMA (no reason why all the Zune tools can't stick to WMV/WMA though, the same way nobody has to play URGE WMA rather than MP3). What about plugging it into your HiFi and streaming from Windows Media Player 11?
IS can definitely NOT edit, and yet neither can "editors".
The quote points out incredibly well what the problem with "the social" was: it was a tagline, nothing more. In order to run "the social" as the tagline for the launch campaign, Microsoft marketing had to ignore:
Eh...I've ranted about this so many times I can't rant no more. If you actually want to read more about it, check out the Zunebox Proposal or the catalog of failure and incompetence that is the blog posts I've written about the Zune's marketing.
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
It seems to me that a lot of the posters in this thread are either just slamming it for being lame or posting their own narrow focused wish list as the missing reason it isn't popular. But I mean seriously, no DRM? You know MS wasn't/isn't going to do that. And somebody talked about Linux support and Ogg vorbis support. It might be cool, but how many people are really making their buying decision on that? Not enough, I'm guessing. They needed lots of regular people to be interested in this.
What totally surprised me about the Zune was that it was not significantly cheaper than the iPod. It doesn't matter what demographic you are going after, if there is already a ubiquitous market leader you must beat them on cost. You are already behind the competition. You don't have any significant quantum leap improvements to offer. And you set your price to equal theirs? Dumb. If they wanted this thing to have a chance they had to make the price lower. By at least a good round number like $50 or $100. Otherwise there is no incentive for anyone to try them. Now they can lower it, but they lost their new and cool factor.
"Contrarily the lookaside buffer might not be the panacea... "
I think the current subscription pricing is amazingly compelling...
Lets say most music fans own 100 cds, and perhaps they paid an average of $12 a disc for them. That's a one time investment of $1200 and they get to keep the music forever.
Now if you take that $1200 and put it in a savings account at 5%, then you should get back $60 year. I pay $60/year for my Yahoo Unlimited subscription.
Hence unlimited music forever costs the same as having 100 cds forever. Now it's possible that market forces will change the pricing of subscription services and it's possible that your CDs will no longer be playable, but I find subscription music to be very compelling.
it would be complete if it smelled like crap.
but has anyone set it free yet by running Linux on it?
That was my first thought of course.
Answer here. Not much progress yet though.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Even some products I thought they created were bought. I thought they at least created all of SQL server, but nope, the OLAP part was bought from an Israeli company.
Wouldn't all these changes just make it into something else? In other words, the way to make it a success is to bring out a different successful product.
Hmm, I actually completely forgot that the zune existed. :)
the iPod it ain't. brown for a reason.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
It's brown, it squirts, and it's going down the toilet....it's diarrhea in a box!!
I agree, if Microsoft had simply made full use of WiFi, the Zune sales chart would be looking a lot more rosy now.
It makes you wonder what happens in June, when Apple ships an iPhone which is basically an iPod with WiFi - will iPhone users be able to share anything with each other? I doubt it would be songs but even if it were just arbitrary data it would be a step ahead of the Zune (the way it is now).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The brown Zune may not look bad - in Sunlight. But I defy anyone to tell me they set up test units under the same lighting the Zune would be exhibited in at a Target, and looked at that color in those conditions and liked it at all.
In fact the whole kiosk was badly designed because the units are fixed but some features of the Zune have you rotate it on the side. At every stage, lack of attention to detail is displayed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
ha ha ?
So is MS trying to use piracy as a selling point via the 'social', and then going to wait a few years and push a model that features DRM?
Why UNIX?
Actually, you're not paying for wireless... the price was determined by the price of the iPod. Back when the 30GB iPod was priced at $300, the Zune was going to barely undercut it... then just before the Zune price was going to be relieved, Apple cut the price on the 30GB to $250, so Microsoft matched that price. What you're paying for is a device that competes with the iPod on price, with more features.
Not that I care for the Zune, or its wireless "feature", but you're really not paying for the wireless.
1. It must be physically smaller than iPod of the same capacity
2. It must have click wheel or some other sort of touch sensitive technology that allows me to intuitively navigate and quickly change volume.
3. Wi-Fi sharing must work over the internet. I mean, really, why the fuck not?
4. It must be able to stream music from my PC wirelessly.
5. It must cost $50 less than iPod.
6. A marketing campaign without penises and asses in commercials.
Tall order? You bet. But that's what you have to do when you're entering a well established market.
PowerPoint was acquired.
Word was home-grown (word-processors weren't their idea, of course) but largely based on work from Xerox-Parc (they brought Simonyi in).
Excel was home-grown (spreadsheets weren't their idea).
NT Kernel -- not black and white. Essentially a clone of VAX VMS.
Internet Explorer -- based on NCSA Mosaic, read the freaking copyright in the About box.
By my count that's either 2 or 3.
First, what MS did right: The Zune interface is decent, and I had zero issues with playing with a demo one at the store. The software is well done, although I use MS URGE service, so its pretty much the same.
.WAV files, like 96-bit, 192 kHz files fresh off a Protools mixer. Maybe add high-end inputs/outputs (AES/EBU, FireWire, etc.), so this specific model of Zune can be used as a hard disk recorder for single stereo tracks in a pinch.
Improvements:
Most importantly: Merge the Zune codebase back in the Windows Mobile/Windows CE codebase, and have the next Zune a Windows Mobile device. This will allow third parties to write games for it, and attract more customers to the platform. I don't understand why MS reinvented the wheel in this case.
Second, For non-DRM files, have it work like a lot of generic WMA players -- have it show up as a drive or player, allow for copying files to and from it. Archos does this right, Napster's players also do this. Creative also has a number of players which allow for driverless copying of files. For DRM files, Windows Media Player already works well.
Third, have some software to rip DVDs to play on the player, even if it means DRM. This will allow people to copy movies to it when they are on a trip, or bored, waiting in the DMV line or whatnot.
Fourth, offer some way of user logging in. Be it a PIN, fingerprint scanner, or something that can't be easily bypassed by a casual thief. After securing the front door, then like many people above stated, offer wireless downloading of songs and movies.
Fifth, offer some type of wireless streaming either to and from. This will allow someone to listen to music on their home PC streamed to the Zune, or have the Zune stream to the XBox songs or movies.
Sixth, maybe offer a specific model of Zune aimed at music professionals who need a device that can play uncompressed high-quality
Finally, have a different control design. The round push-ring looks too much iPod-like for my tastes. It works and works well, but at first glance, people immediately think "iPod wannabe."
It took me three reads to parse that for the racist tripe that it seems to be. ...Dune... oh, dune, as in sand, as in "A-rab", right? ...Coon... as in the classic slur for a black person, popular in the south, IIRC. Hmmm, I guess some A-rabs are pretty dark.
Ergo, a 'dune coon' is a dark skinned person presumed to be of middle Indo-Asian origins... got it. Towel heads. Right.
Is douchebag really one word, or should it be two?
In Nature, stupidity is a capital offense. In human society, too many get off with less than a warning.
1) The built-in Wi-Fi, aka 'the social,' was a bad idea.
Scrap the one cool part that nothing else has? Fuck that! Make it useful instead! I have a win mobile phone w/unlimited data and I love having the ability to stream radio and download podcasts to it without needing a pc. Make that work on the zune and I'd be just about sold.
(It stil needs a 60+ gb hard drive to really get me interested.)
2) Tell newbies what is can do.
Uh.. yea. If it were written properly I'd say that's a given.
3) Create a low-end, flash-based player.
Sure. Give it wifi.
4) Push subscriptions.
This one I support. I got a free Ruckus account for being in college and I have gotten a lot of music and audio (Dane Cook, Jim Gaffigan) that I probably would never have tried. As long as the users understand that they're just renting the music, I think subscription is a fine model.
5) Make it sexy.
Good advice.. but I don't really see it happening.
Nathan Friedly
Did you check those threads before posting them? Ouch!
and sell it as a toilet brush mp3 player.
There others tro share with, not many granted.
The problem is MS, once again, does not understand the user, or one of the key reasons the user is using the product.
1) Don't interupt someones song whenever someone wants to conect. Flash something on the screen in case thre watching it, let them turn off any indicator, and allow them to let iother people dump music for later review.
Put the power in the users hands.
2) People listening to music are saying "I am not interested in what sounds are around me."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
- Sell of the whole damned thing to an external company and let them worry about it. Then get back to work innovating. It worked so well with the Zune.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
1. Boat anchors!
....
2. Coffee coasters
3. Bookmarks
Ok, I've run out of things to do with your Zune.
Oh, wait, one more
Anti-theft devices! (if you steal something, I throw a Zune at your head).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Five things msft invented:
1) Lying to the US-DoJ with video-taped testomony - and getting away with it.
2) Astroturf campaign which included letters from dead people - and getting away with it.
3) Hiring dying micro-cap companies to file bogus lawsuits, and make outragous claims against the competition - and getting away with it.
4) Creating fake think-tanks that insist the msft is always right, and any action against msft would be anti-capitialist - and getting away with it.
5) Secretly funded, rigged, benchmark and TCO "studies" - and getting away with it.
As we do, here in europe, where the phone carrier won't cripple all the options that come with the phone.
(In fact you're free to buy whatever phone model please you, the phone company will make a rebate for any of them if you extend your subsciption for 1 or 2 more years, and even if you bought the phone on your own, your free to use their SIM card to access the network).
Any phone with bluetooth can share its MP3 files with any other bluetooth enabled thingy (PDA, PC, whatever). And I doesn't come with any restriction. And people happily pass around funny sounds and songs. And yes it's cool. And yes it sucks that it's not possible to do it on a iPod (lacks WiFi) or Zune (DRM) - although we still have to see Zunes around here...
Also available on GPRS with any carrier, or PPP over Bluetooth, or WiFi (on smart phones), or DVB (starting to appear, although still costly).
You'll never ever see a locked function on a phone sold in europe, appart from SIM-locks in case of prepaid. The only restriction is that some carrier just lack some function for now (not all of them have UTMS already)
Oh, and most bluetooth gadgets happily sync over bluetooth.
The onl drawbacks are :
- currently SD card only go up to 4GB. You have to go for some (rarer) HD-based PDA to have more.
- bluetooth 1.x is very slow. it's not good yet for bigger files (like video).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
microsoft couldn't make a sexy product if they stuck a fuckable vagina on it.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
There are some nice mp3 cell phones now, likely there are some with Bluetooth file transfer, add a big SD card (maybe some 'spares' for more GBs) and you have something Zune like without all the DRM and MS involvement. These phone capabilities are becoming more and more common, it just seems something like Zune has no chance in the long term.
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Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
(sarcasm)
So the point of this article is:
We need to figure out how to help Microsoft
achieve market dominance in yet another market
with yet another mediocre product so that we are all be left
with no choice but that mediocre product. Hmmm. Now there's
something to get excited about.
(seriously)
why don't they just offer something better for less money.
Oh duh. Stupid me. We're talking about computer related
shit and Microsoft. Sorry I temporarily lost my mind.
(sarcasm)
So am I confused or is the big idea of this article
that we all need to get our heads together and
figure out how to help poor old Microsoft
achieve market dominance in yet another market
with yet another mediocre product so that we are all left
with no choice but that mediocre product with no prospects
for improvement because there is no longer any competition and
because Microsoft therefor doesn't give a good goddam about
customer service any longer.
Well now, for some peculiar reason I'm having problems getting
excited about this even though
I know that poor old Microsoft is helpless and needy and all that.
Apparently I'm just a mean spirited badass because I just can't get into
the concept.
(seriously)
Maybe if they gave me back my money for the defective MS Office
piece of crap that I have no choice but to use at considerable personal cost
I would think more kindly of them in their pits of Zune despair. As it is I hope they spend $100 billion
on it and choke to death on shit-brown plastic.
There are excellent services and products already available at decent prices.
What is MS offering that's really new that people really care about
and are willing to pay for. It seems like all they need to do is offer something
better for less money even if it is just a coolness factor or whatever it is
that people want and are willing to pay for.
If this weren't just some ego-control-dominance-bendover
issue for Microsoft rather than about real customer service
then they could just fucking figure it out and do what
needs to be done. But that's not whats happening. They want control of this market
but are clueless about how to get it other than to lose money for a half decade
in order to wear down opposition and achieve control of the market with a product
that not only causes impotence in otherwise fertile humans but actually causes their genitals
to dry up and fall off.
If anyone is so self destructive as to want to actively support Microsoft to their own
manifest personal detriment and to the detriment of everyone else then why don't they just
go for broke and, for no apparent reason, send money to Exxon instead of trying to help Microsoft
(tears of hysterical laughter here). If you want the ultimate bend-over experience
then Exxons the place to send your money. Microsoft is minor league in that regard although
they do aspire.
Oh, yeah?!? What about OS's (their MAIN product)? They've been at that for how many years? And we're still waiting for them to catch up with the rest of the industry! So this idea that "Man, that second--or third--or whatever generation Zune is going to be great and better than anything out there" is pure, 24-karat BS!!!
How Microsoft Can Make Zune Suck Less
Make it so goddamn sexy & flashy that its completely unusable, like vista?
probably. Let them figure it out. Duh!
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Bill, Make the hardware FREE and the Zune will be a tremendous hit and iPod killer. Make your money back on the subscriptions with no to light DRM. Done!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Except this time, the winner actually has the superior product.
Though, I did like the basic concept of the social-network idea. A roaming internet? Cool. Too bad the DRM limitations were so. . , limiting.
And actually, I'm very happy that there's not yet another layer of WiFi devices radiating my environment. At least now the iPod people are just sitting there in their harmless pods. Waiting to sprout. . . (Ugh.)
So the iPod wins. And the more Pod-People there are, the easier it will be to take over the planet. We all lose.
Cuz, it doesn't matter which side you choose. It's all Good Cop, Bad Cop. (MS = Bad Cop/Republican, Apple = Good Cop/Democrat.)
Both are evil and bent on the destruction of the planet.
Every time I see a set of white wires sprouting from somebody's head, I always think back to Star Trek DS9 and that drug the Dominion used to control their grunts. . .
-FL
So, once again, you've decided to talk about me behind my back. And with the oft-repeated assertion that I am a "paid Microsoft shill". Way to kick off my weekend.
I want you to prove your assertion that I am an employee of, or a contractor hired by, Microsoft Corporation. And no, links to previous postings on Slashdot do not count as "proof".
If that doesn't work out for you, you might try seeking psychiatric help. Maybe you can ask them if it's normal for a random jobber on a message board to feel that he's been singled out by a massive multinational corporation.
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Specifically, I'd like to see another Slashdot poster that holds the same views as you, hates Microsoft as virulently as you, and has had literally years of ACs posting thousands of times in response to your flamebait, and a group of people who (like myself) think you do more damage than good and are not afraid of pointing it out whenever we can. Find us wildly different people with completely different posting histories and patterns and somehow prove that Microsoft has all these accounts set up as "sleepers" to one day just start "harassing" you exclusively.
I know all that sounds far-fetched, sure. But otherwise what you have here is your feverish imagination and insane, ridiculous arrogance.
In the past you've been asked to provide backing for your recurring FUD, and you've consistently failed to do so. Maybe this time you'll step up to the plate. I have nothing to hide, other than my intense dislike of you (and people like you) who think free software is the one true answer to all questions and that spending large amounts of time spreading bullshit FUD about companies is somehow a noble task. But if you're going to keep pointing out I'm a "troll" and then stupidly trying to tie that into some nebulous conspiracy theory that revolves around Microsoft stalking you on teh interwebs then I'd very much like to see some proof of your claims. And I'm sure every single person that cares about Slashdot as a community would as well.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Nothing to add.
Fuck it, I've given conclusive fucking photographic proof that instead of being part of some Microsoft scheme to CONKER TEH INTERWEBS I am, in fact, a teenager working in a supermarket. But does twitter care? No.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
If the purpose is to make you look stupid, it's working just fine.