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Microsoft Reportedly Ends Zune Hardware Development

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-need-to-throw-good-money-after-bad dept.

ideaz tips this Bloomberg report: "Microsoft Corp. will cease introducing new versions of the Zune music and video-player amid tepid demand, helping the company shift its focus to mobile phones, according to a person familiar with the decision. The company will concentrate on putting Zune software onto mobile phones such as those running Microsoft’s Windows operating system, said the person, who declined to be identified because the decision hasn’t been announced. Zune software lets customers buy songs and movies, as well as pay a monthly fee to stream unlimited music."

1 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Their key strategic mistake by bananaquackmoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I realize you're joking they actually made many, many more strategic mistakes. Forcing me to use the Zune software was one. Only having that software on the PC was another. Making that software super slow and super buggy was also quite bad. Rarely updating the firmware and software was the next mistake. Poor codec support was another. Ignoring their customers was probably the worst (one example of that: doing love/hate instead of star ratings). The thing that pissed me off the most (though they later fixed it), as an early adopter, was that their software AUTOMATICALLY and without asking, upon initial install, overwrote all of my music tags, as well as corrupting a good 75% of my music. It's all really too bad, the UI on the hardware was quite good.