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Microsoft To Exit the Zune Business?
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jan 25, 2009 07:51 AM
from the leaving-only-the-other-makers-of-zunes dept.
from the leaving-only-the-other-makers-of-zunes dept.
thefickler writes "According to Microsoft's quarterly filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Zune platform experienced a revenue drop of 54 percent, or $100 million. This compares to relatively healthy sales of the iPod, which were up 3 percent in the same period (though revenue did drop by 16 percent). Obviously, with the recent job cuts at Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, pundits are wondering how soon until the Zune also gets the chop. As one pundit wrote: 'Microsoft, by now, should be realizing that it's never going to be as "cool" as Apple, so why waste its time with the Zune where it has no competitive advantage?'"
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What really runined it was... (Score:5, Funny)
Steve Ballmer saying "squirt".
Heckuva marketing slogan, that one.
My Zune Prediction From June, 2006 (Score:5, Interesting)
Keyword graphs show the story...
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry=zune_meme_rerun [realmeme.com]
Microsoft entered a market nearing its growth inflection point with a marginal product. They thought they could win through hype and Microsoft branding.
Microsoft Vista is failing for similar reasons.
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wheres (Score:5, Funny)
the "suddenoutbeakofcommonsense" tag
Re:wheres (Score:5, Funny)
everyone misspelled it
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this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. A mammoth uphill struggle to beat the popular and well-established iPod (as well as many other competitors)
2. The use of DRM.
3. The use of the word "squirt." Which is easily associated with bodily functions.
4. It came in brown. Which made "squirt" all the more obnoxious.
5. The lock-up issue.
No-one will miss it...
No-one will miss it...? (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody except this guy:
http://sydfish.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/zune-tattoo.jpg [wordpress.com]
Oh, now I see why it failed...
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Not even the tatoo guy (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if it was a factor, but it is deliciously funny, that Microsoft's Zune did not play Microsoft's PlayForSure format. :-)
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for #1, I don't think many of those issues really hit the average consumer except when it was too late - when they already bought it.
In my life, I probably used an iPod for less than 20 minutes and a Zune for less than 15. I like looking at the newer models my friends carry from time to time, and recently had a friend's newer Zune in my hands. It's okay, much better than the sloppy buttons of the 1st gen. What strikes me about the interface - the pad where you can scroll up or down with your thumb - is that it still isn't as easy as the clickwheel on an iPod. It may sound irrelevant, but since this is the one and only way to communicate with the device it does become a big deal.
Otherwise, it's just another Me too! device and with the prices pretty much in the same range as an iPod, there is little incentive to go out and buy one. With an iPod, you at least have iTunes and the like.
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about:
6: Not available outside North America (presumably because getting the rights for the marketplace agreed was too hard), which then planted the meme that it could only take purchased tracks, rather than "rip your own CD".
7: Marketplace tracks were priced in "points" rather than real money, which meant that the customer needed to pre-load the points ("What, I need to pay for my music in advance! Why can't I just pay when I want it?").
Now, while both of those are incorrect (it could take MP3, and the loading of points could be done at purchase), it gave out the wrong perceptions. And in this game, perception is all.
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft uses the point system so you can pay for things over multiple platforms xbox, zune etc.
You know, Cash works for that too.
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
For the most part the Zune had to do in a few years what Apple did over five. When the Zune was released in 2006, Apple had over five years of experience designing and tweaking the iPod. It also had over three years with iTunes. The whole ecosystem of the iPod also had to be replicated. That was/is no small task. Also the history of Microsoft suggests that they take a few iterations to get things usable.
The first Zune wasn't bad. The problem was it wasn't great. To beat the iPod, it had to be substantially better. It only offered a few features that the iPod didn't (bigger screen, Wi-fi, radio, sharing) but also drawbacks. Shared music is extremrely restricted. Zune can't be used as HD. The more desired advantages were trumped by Apple with the iPod touch which features a new multi-touch interface that the Zune still doesn't have.
One of the main reasons the Zune didn't do as well was marketing. MS just didn't get it that their other products sold well because people didn't have a choice. To convince people to buy your product over another requires good marketing. So they went with "We're the underdog; let's market our product that way and we'll seem cool. Let's make our commercials oblique and obscure." To their dismay, people have never considered MS the underdog or cool. Their commercials never presented the viewer with a clear picture of what they were advertising.
Contrast this with the iPhone commercials. In the smartphone market, the iPhone was/is new. They had to get people to buy it over Windows CE and Blackberrys and non-smart phones. There were four original iPhone commercials. Each of them showed that (1) it's a phone, (2) some other function (Google maps, browser, plays media, etc), (3) how it works using the new touch interface, (4) who makes it (Apple), (5) where to get it (Apple or AT&T). Each iPhone commercial fulfilled the role of advertising whereas the Zune commercials left the viewer puzzled as to what the message was.
In these hard economic times, it doesn't help that the division that Zune is in a division has not been very profitable historically. In the last few quarters has the division been in the black. With the MSN and Xbox (and now the Zune), the division has been $7 billion in losses since the Xbox was started. That can't bode well if MS is so worried about the future that they've laid people off for the first time. The Xbox 360 has many more customers and is more popular than the Zune albeit it probably costs more. Most likely the Zune will have to be cut.
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mac Business Unit Hiding Xbox Losses (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't imagine what it must be like to work in the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft knowing that all your efforts are going to nothing more than playing accounting games to hide the Xbox disaster.
It is staggering to grasp the magnitude of the Xbox diaster when you look at it:
* Over 4 billion dollars in losses on the first Xbox hardware
* Mac Business Unit moved into the Xbox division to cover up the losses
* Absolute worst and cheapest console hardware ever created with the Xbox 360
* Online fees for everyone playing online games effectively adding 50-150 dollars in extra revenue per console
* Three years on the market
And the E&D division still was only able to post a relatively tiny profit for 2008. Take away the profitable Mac Business Unit, the Xbox online fees, and other profitable parts of the E&D division and the Xbox 360 hardware is obviously still generating huge losses.
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a bad product -at- day one, but it's gotten far better since. It has some very impressive features which I haven't seen in any other MP3 player at that price range, and upgrading older versions to support all the features of the newer ones is something I wish more companies would allow. If they'd just open the fucker up and lose the DRM...
The way I think DRM should work is like this: If you try to play a file which you don't have the 'key' for the media player will still play it, only also informing the user that it's playing an unlicensed song somehow. Thus make DRM a tool to help the user stay legit, instead of a punishment for those who are legit but can't playback the file the way they want to.
That way it's the user, and not a potentially faulty algorithm, that have the final say whenever they can play back the music or not.
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
You raise two interesting questions. a) What constitutes the perfect pmp (or to put it another way, the most desirable pmp) and b) will they become irrelevant as more phones morph into music players? The whole drm thing is a side issue. I can't think of any player that won't play drm-free mp3's - even the zune. The pmp manufacturers don't give a crap about drm but have to include it if they want to have a music downloading service because the record/movie companies demand it.
It looks to me like pmp market of the future will become be divided into expensive high end enthusiast devices and ultra cheap low end mass market devices, with the much larger middle ground being taken up by combination phone/pmp devices. Everyone carries a phone and it doesn't make sense for people to have two boxes to tote around just to listen to music or look at video. Regardless, most players work pretty much the same - they play music and video. How they do it is irrelevant as long as it's simple and makes sense to the end user.
What we end up talking about is really the music management software and associated music sales/downloading services. Ipods/phones/tunes already have a massive lead in this area in terms of seamless integration and a one-stop shop. Apple created the market and do a good job of making sure they remain the best. It's hard to imagine any company being able to outpace Apple on both hardware and software/services such that people see a clear advantage. How could Microsoft really hope to blow away Apple on both hardware and software/music services? Apple is more than good enough to make it impossible. Hence the market stays fragmented and Apple centric.
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:4, Insightful)
The pmp manufacturers don't give a crap about drm but have to include it if they want to have a music downloading service because the record/movie companies demand it.
As recent iTunes and Amazon store news show they really don't, or are not in a position to. Microsoft failed at defining their customers: they collaborated with the content industry against the people who were supposed to buy the Zune. Apple got it right, whether that will be good or bad in the long run.
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:4, Insightful)
Simply Wrong.
Apple's DRM is a non-issue because once it is setup it is utterly transparent to the user. One account. 5 computers. Unlimited number of ipods connected to those computers. Burn tracks to a CD (10 times in the same playlist)and rip them on another machine and the DRM is gone. And now, the DRM is gone altogether!
The information is everywhere. Why is it so damn hard for people to read and understand why Apple's DRM isn't an issue? The facts speak for themselves.
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Re:this comes as no surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have neither a Zune nor an iPod. So I might not know what I'm talking about. But on the other hand, I don't think I have any entrenched bias. And I've done a little googling. So take this reply in that context.
My understanding is that most of the restrictive Zune DRM has to do with the WiFi "squirt" feature. (Obviously this crippled what could have been the Zune's killer feature.) But iPods have no wifi at all; it seems silly to argue that iTunes DRM is less restrictive because it does not prevent you from doing things you couldn't do anyway.
As for moving music around, in some ways the Zune seems better. Music goes onto the iPod and never flows in the other direction. By contrast, you can move non-DRMed files from the Zune back onto your hard drive.
The burn-rip argument I dislike because (1) it degrades quality and (2) consumes media. More, it's nearly* just an application of the Analog Hole (I say "nearly" because CDs are digital. But you're still transcoding between lossy formats, which degrades quality), which of course exists for any device -- Zune, iPod, or some hypothetical completely-and-utterly locked-down player. But that said, it seems that you can burn CDs from WMAs from Microsoft's store too (Caveat: An option exists in WMA files to prevent users from burning them to CD. But it appears not to be in use anywhere.)
So I'm not seeing a clear win for Apple in DRM here.
But I think the most fundamental argument is: It sounds like you're saying Apple has "good DRM." Can such a thing exist?
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It may be folded into the phone devices (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft has indicated that they would prefer less manufacturers and models of Windows mobile based phones, so they can make the OS more tightly integrated with the hardware. There have also been rumors that Zune functionality would be folded into the phone, which tends to make sense. So my guess would be they gracefully lose, er...bow out to the iPod and say they are "providing a great combination to their customers by putting the Zune features into the phone."
Wrong approach... (Score:5, Funny)
Just rename it the iZune, eZune, or better yet, the ieZune...slap a Vista Capable sticker on it and it can't help selling like hotcakes!
*crickets chirping*
Well, then again, maybe not.
Re:Wrong approach... (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not just about "cool" (Score:4, Interesting)
It's more about making products people want to buy. How many people really want to buy Microsoft products anymore? When was the last time we heard about people lining up to buy the latest version of Windows? The problem for Microsoft is that it has a hard time making products that excite the vast majority of the public, and they've had a few huge mistakes in public perception lately. The Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death was a just a debacle. They shipped a Zune that was less feature-filled than the then current iteration iPod. Don't get me started on Vista, "Vista Capable," and "Vista Ready," or whatever those stupid stickers said.
Sure, Apple products are cool, but they also work pretty well. Why Microsoft didn't look to Apple's or it's own playbook and more closely linked the Zune to the Windows environment is beyond me. This worked for years with Explorer.
Seriously, Xbox games are "cool." I have an original Xbox, and I have been giving Microsoft my $$$ for several years now for my Xbox Live membership. However, I'm just too stingy to give my money to Microsoft for an Xbox 360 after all the hoopla about failure rates. The race to beat Sony to the market was a failure of vision and an appreciation of paradigm shift. There was a huge market for casual gaming that just wasn't going to be satisfied by the first-person shooter, and Nintendo was able to capture it. We can chalk that up to a happy accident for Nintendo executives, but so what?
If a company tries to be all things to all people, it will be unable to do everything as well as companies that are smaller, more focused, or more nimble. Look at General Motors as example number one. Consumers have too much access to information and too many choices. The problem with Microsoft's executive leadership is that the strategic steps they take are, primarily, reactions to market forces. Then, they are placed in the position of having to respond. Why didn't anyone at Microsoft see that Netbooks might one day become popular and have a version of Vista which would run on them? No one? How long was Intel working on the Atom?
Microsoft stocks are, historically, looking pretty affordable right now, but I'm going to wait. I just don't see any game changing ideas coming out of Redmond. Until, as a company, it starts doing something much better than the competition, it will never rise to its former glory days, and its market share and/or profits will continue to decline.
Re:It's not just about "cool" (Score:5, Informative)
Really? Because the only phrase in that drivel you just wrote about the zune was wrong "They shipped a Zune that was less feature-filled than the then current iteration iPod." BS! Bigger screen, FM radio, and Wifi. The thing the ipod actually did have that the zune didn't was a shiny surface on the back. That's literallly it. The zune even had better quality audio. Buy music from FM radio? Geat idea.
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Microsoft UK launches Zune MusicTurd(tm) service (Score:3, Funny)
In a bid to win back profits after huge layoffs worldwide, Microsoft UK has launched Zune MusicTurd(tm) [today.com] for mobile phones.
The highly competitive music store offers tracks at twice the price, DRM-locked to a chosen individual ear of the purchaser. If they can get it to work with their phone. Microsoft were careful to point out to the financial press that charging your account, however, works perfectly and that the helpline number has been connected to a fax machine.
Microsoft is confident the MusicTurd(tm) service will attract millions of people who will buy tracks from them to play on one mobile ever, not transferable to any other device including the same phone's replacement, in preference to stores offering cheaper unlocked MP3s, and won't just drive people to filesharing networks, MP3 blogs or copying 500 gigabyte USB disks full of music from their friends in sheer disgust at these corporate tools.
"We understand that lots of people use telephones they carry around with them these days," said Hugh Griffiths, Microsoft UK head of Mobile, "and you can even play music on them. A bit like a transistor radio. Whatever will they think of next! So if we get the consumer interest, we'll offer an enhanced version, MusicTurd(tm) Polished(tm). Like we're doing with Windows 7. You can't expect it to be any good until the third version, of course. So buy the first two and it'll be fantastic. Trust us on this. We have hundreds of loyal suck, er, customers on the MSN website, I'm sure we can squeeze them until the pips rattle.
"What do you mean, I'm lacking enthusiasm for our product? You'd think I was trying to get redundancy in the next round of layoffs or something. Ha! Ha! What a ridiculous notion."
[Read the original interview [pcpro.co.uk]. Least enthusiastic marketer in history. It was quite hard to outdo.]
[Oh, and have a Zune-Anus logo [today.com].]
So the revenue from iPods fell 3%... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not compare revenue to revenue, or sales to sales?
Re:So the revenue from iPods fell 3%... (Score:5, Informative)
iPod sales (22.7 million) went up 3%, revenue ($3.3 billion) was down 16% compared to last year. That would suggest more people were buying this year but were buying the cheaper models compared to last year.
Zune on the other hand drop 54% in revenue ($100 million) due to drop in sales. There's no other breakdowns. Considering the whole division was profitable by only $151 million and the Xbox made up $135 million of that, the Zune doesn't generate much profit for MS whereas the iPod is substantial money maker for Apple.
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Doomed from the start (Score:5, Insightful)
It was doomed from the start and here is why. Most MS products do not stand on their own. They are either riding on someone's coattails initially or shoved down people's throats (e.g. DOS and office and explorer). This is usually through corporate sales which a bribeable. Zune had to stand on it's own but had no legs.
What the heck? (Score:4, Interesting)
The idea of the original posting that since MS "only" sold $100M of the devices last year they'll leave the market? Or is it that they'll leave the market because the successful iPod line is eating their lunch? Or is is because we all agree the Zune isn't "cool"?
MS has many lines of business that are under $100M in annual revenue, yet they continue on in those markets, despite not being #1 - I'm thinking keyboards, mice, MS Home Server, etc.
The Zune is a fine piece of hardware, despite the recent bru-ha-ha over the particular model that couldn't handle leap year, and I suspect that MS will lower their investment in Zune hardware development, focus on differentiation on the software side, and (likely) focus on the "self-ripped" MP3 market (as opposed to the $0.99 per-song download market.
A $100M revenue company selling MP3 devices that are tailored to the Windows platform should be a no-brainer, and I believe MS will turn it around. Having said that, my family has all iPods, despite most of our computers running windows...
Re:What the heck? (Score:4, Interesting)
According to TFA, Zune revenue wasn't $100M, the drop in Zune revenue was $100M, which is a 54% fall.
By extrapolation, this suggests that last year's revenue was around $185M and this year's around $85M.
That may be, but it's not a question of revenue but of margin. Keyboards and Mice (which MS makes quite well) are quite likely moderately profitable lines. But doubling profit on them (or elimintating them altogether) would have no effect on MS' botom line.
There is no way the Zune is even close to profitable based on these sales numbers, and based on various figures that have come out concerning Zune development.
It doesn't cost that much (relatively) to spec out, manufacture, and rebrand Logitech hardware. It does cost a lot to design, develop, distribute, promote, and maintain a device and platform like the Zune. $85M, or even $100M a year is not going to cut it, particularly when the market has spoken and given MS a much smaller piece of a rapidly growing pie.
The Ford Pinto was also a fine piece of automotive design, despite the bru-ha-ha over the particular model that couldn't handle a rear-end collision without exploding.
It's isn't that the Zune is a bad product or poor design. It's that it isn't cheaper, better, easier, faster, or more convenient than the alternatives. You can argue all you want, but the market has spoken quite clearly on this point.
This is a concept I've never been able to understand. Why on earth would someone want to make (or buy) a device that only works on one platform, when similar devices work with any?
Particularly when there is little the manufacturer needs to do to ensure cross-platform compatibility. How much did Apple contribute to the development (or suppression) of Gtkpod?
The fact is that MS' Entertainment (or whatever they're calling it today) division has been a money-sink from day one -- full of confusion, odd rebranding decisions, failed initiatives, conflicting projects, lack of focus, and several hardware fiascos -- most notably the XB360's red-ring-of-death and the Zune's leap-second crash.
If I was a MS shareholder (and hadn't sold out long ago when they stopped performing), I would be apoplectic about a lot of these initiatives.
There is a time to cut your losses, consolidate your position, and focus on what you do well. MS has never been able to do this and I doubt they will start now, although in the case of Zune (and probably MSN) it would be the wise thing.
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Apple exiting iPod classic market (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously, I've been amazed at watching the ipod over the years. They came up at 40 gig and it was quite remarkable. I bought an 80 gig model about 2 years ago when they had introduced those. But now you go to the stores and it's hard to buy a classic. They are pushing the nano.
That's usually the first sign of a product hitting it's peak in the business cycle. When they stop caring about the consumer, and start pushing the models which have the highest profit.
If I were MS, I'd stay in this market. Apple hasn't changed the ipod fundamentally since they introduced the color screen and videos.
Re:Apple exiting iPod classic market (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple hasn't changed the ipod fundamentally since they introduced the color screen and videos.
O RLY? [wikipedia.org]
I guess Microsoft's strategy to fight iPod could involve merging Zune into Pocket PC.
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Fucking bravo, Microsoft. (Score:5, Interesting)
That means Microsoft have not only managed to damage to MP3 market to the extent that Apple "won", but now they're dropping out too. If I weren't convinced they were just short-term reactionary fools I would believe they had it planned all along.
What am I going on about? Well, you see, back in the days just after iPod, Microsoft introduced this thing called PlaysForSure. It was a system to provide a variety of DRM options - single track purchase, promotion with timeout, monthly fee all-you-can-eat, limited play count, and so on. This in itself would have provided a superset of the functionality iTunes provided.
(For the record, where I stand: DRM must die. Three times. Horribly. Preferably acid bath.)
Sounds great, at least from a technical and business standpoint, right? Unfortunately, just to remind us that they're Microsoft, in order to get a PlaysForSure badge on your product, and to be allowed to use the system whatsoever, you have to pass certain certification processes. That includes making sure you have a good startup time, good inter-track delay time, fast database indexing, and so on.
Still sounds great? Aha, but just to remind us they're Microsoft, they're the people that design the protocol, and they make damn sure it's near-impossible to actually implement a good player from it. The database updates and queries are so horribly defined you'd struggle to get good performance out of a proper SQL-like database running on a PC, let alone a tiny little device with 1MB RAM. The requirement to support PlaysForSure means you must use MTP protocol, which is another botched abortion of a protocol. It also requires that if you use MTP you cannot use Mass Storage, further annoying your customers and very neatly if "accidentally" meaning they don't work on Macs. And then there's the encryption itself which is so horribly over-the-top and poorly implemented (you MUST use Microsoft's libraries) that it badly impacts player performance and its battery life.
So Microsoft screw the entire non-Apple MP3 market for a couple of years. Then they bring out their own PlaysForSure player. Except it's not PlaysForSure. You can imagine the language used where I worked (and presumably other companies). They decided that it was too hard to implement their own spec, so they make a player which doesn't comply to it. It's not even in the set at all - it's totally incompatible.
After an electronics-generation of fucking up the non-Apple MP3 market, then screwing up their own solution, and now after (very likely) ditching Zune, they've basically done almost exactly the right set of steps to put Apple into a lead that will be hard to make a dent into.
I stick with my decade old opinion that you don't partner with Microsoft - you watch your back.
Re:Fucking bravo, Microsoft. (Score:5, Interesting)
So Microsoft screw the entire non-Apple MP3 market for a couple of years. Then they bring out their own PlaysForSure player. Except it's not PlaysForSure.
Yes, I still have a hard time understanding what Microsoft thought they were doing there. They screwed all their partners there by destroying the idea of PlaysForSure, in that suddenly those songs wouldn't play, at least not for sure. Putting "PlaysForSure" on any product after that was a joke.
I've also thought, in hindsight, that people have greatly underestimated the degree to which Apple hurt Microsoft with the iPod. Most people used to talk about the "halo effect", meaning people would like their iPods so much that they'd be interested in looking at other Apple products, but there were much bigger problems than that.
Microsoft put a decent amount of money into developing Window Media formats, promoting them, pushing support onto every product they could, and selling media companies on the idea of DRM. Most people are quick to note that Windows Media gives Microsoft increased vendor lock-in, since they didn't provide or allow support for other platforms, but it did much more than that. It allowed them to create strategic partnerships with large media companies, and more importantly let Microsoft get their hooks into all sorts of other markets. If they owned WMA and WMA was *the* audio format people were using, then they could own the MP3-player market as well as the cell phone market for phones that would provide media capabilities. Likewise, it could give them an edge in competing in devices like consoles or set-top boxes that might include media-playing capabilities. Further, any embedded systems (e.g. computerized audio systems in cars) would potentially be forced to license the embedded version of Windows. All of these sorts of things apply for video, too.
But apparently someone at Microsoft was snoozing and didn't notice that the iPod was growing in popularity. Since the most popular MP3 player didn't support WMA, it meant that people weren't going to rip their audio collections as WMA, and also they weren't going to be buying those DRM-wrapped WMAs. Since the only DRM they did support was one that no other online stores could use, the record industry was eventually forced to drop DRM, which then lead to an even bigger problem for Microsoft. The great selling point for WMA was that it allowed a nearly universal (except for on the iPod) DRM technology, and not much else. I can only guess that this damaged Microsoft's leverage with media companies, but more importantly it means that it doesn't make any sense to sell WMAs on online stores. The only sensible formats to use for online stores are MP3 and maybe AAC.
Further, since people are much less likely to use WMA, the benefit of providing support in consumer electronics and embedded systems is virtually neutralized.
Sorry for the random (and poorly organized) rant, but I thought it fitting to provide some context. It seems to me that the Zune really wasn't some random unimportant side-product for Microsoft, but rather a desperate attempt by Microsoft to rescue a lot of their work in developing control/lock-in in a variety of markets. I think that, if they're going to drop the Zune, they may be on their way toward abandoning the media dominance they've been chasing for several years.
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Re:are you kidding? (Score:4, Interesting)
Blaming Microsoft for the fact that Apple doesn't support MTP is ridiculous. Apple locked down iTunes so that you can't really use it with other players, and they tried to lock down the iPod so that you can't use it with other music management applications.
You missed my point. They specified that you can only use MTP and no other protocol. You were not allowed to have a dual-protocol device, which was perfectly possible. Of course, they eventually settled for allowing this, but not before the damage was done - vendors implemented MTP instead of the ubiquitous Mass Storage (MSC) and when you've got limited resources to do things, you settle for one protocol. So a mass of MTP devices appeared, which neatly didn't work on Mac.
And, of course, just to let us know they're Microsoft, MTP wasn't supported unless you had Windows Media player 9 installed. And of course, WMP9 wasn't supported unless you had Windows XP installed. Very neat.
I was there when this all happened and it was as obvious as a 100ft tall pink elephant. They got away with all this crap simply because the US and EU were busy with the bigger fish of browsers, openness, protocol compatibility and all the other monopolistic practices. I don't see why you should give them the benefit of the doubt here - there's decades and hundreds of examples of Microsoft doing the same thing over and over. This is no different.
As for "screwing the entire non-Apple MP3 market", I think you give Microsoft too much credit; Microsoft has had virtually no impact either way. If you want an MP3 player, there are plenty of choices that cost almost nothing.
You are wrong. If you are a non-Apple MP3 manufacturer you must go with PlaysForSure. It's a tick-box. The mass market wants tick boxes, and customers wanted P4S. If you didn't have P4S, you didn't sell. It's sad and believe me it's true. Microsoft screwed the market by crippling all the non-Apple vendors with a shitty product.
MP3 players are dead anyway; like PDAs, they are just becoming part of phones.
That is patently untrue. There are so many factors which will ensure they'll be around for years. Form factor is one. Price is a fucking obvious one too.
Also notice that the phones which list music playback as a strength have all gone with their own implementations. Notice how big the companies are that had the guts to do it: e.g Nokia. Sadly we're left with a bunch of walled-garden solutions, iTunes included.
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Zune was never going to work, heres why... (Score:4, Interesting)
The zune was never going to be a the ipod killer that MS hoped it would be and it is difficult to see why MS entered the market.
Basically if you are going up against the gorilla that is Apple in the ipod market, you have to have something that differentiates markedly. The only thing the zune had was the wireless sharing. However two problems with that. Firstly it was hopelessly crippled by MS usually DRM fan boys. Secondly it relied on enough mass usage of the zune so that there was a chance someday you might meet another zune user. If you took that away you were left with a nice MP3 player competing with all the other nice non apple MP3 players in a sea made by Apple. And remember an ipod is not just a music player but is the focal point of a whole industry providing ipod addons. Zune never had a chance.
The question is what could compete with ipod? History has shown that it would either take a whole new technology shift(wireless music ???) or Apple to make a mis-step. So far Apple has shown they are not likely to do the latter, in fact you have to be impressed how they do not sit back and wait for the competition to catch up, but are constantly pushing the envelope. This makes it very hard to compete against. You only have to look how a few months after the zune was produced apple produced the itouch so totally changing the market before the zune ever got going.
So what about MS. Probably what they should of done instead of spending millions on Zune was got into phones. Here they have a slight advantage in that their software runs the corporate world so if they made a phone that seamlessly connected then corporate world would probably buy a few.
However even here they have a few problems. Firstly it would eat away at their mobile OS market, since they would be competing against the same people who buy there software from them at the moment. This would almost certainly push these same manufacturers to android and the like.
Secondly MS hardware sucks. They just do not have the ability to integrate the software and hardware into one unit, in the same way apple do. This must be partly to do with their reliance on 3rd party hardware suppliers to do the hardware design, then having to fit their software to it.
In the end of the day, MS should really concentrate on doing what it knows best, making operating systems for gray boxes
Windows 7 = cool (Score:5, Funny)
Success aside, the "coolness" of this OS could lead to a rise in the number of MS fanbois (yes they do exist). This, combined with MS's newfound "coolness" (assuming it persists), could just breath new life into their Joe Sixpack consumer products like the Zune.
Re: (Score:3)
So there is a marked for a not dumbed doen uncool things. Sure, they are not as profitable, but it's all about the choice.
Except that the Zune, by all accounts, was uncool and dumbed down
Re:Just because (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a list of features I've found very useful on my iAudio G3 over the couple years I've owned it. Some seem obscure, and I never knew about them until I looked for them because I found a need. (I'm not saying the iPod lacks these features, since I just don't know).
Plus I have it set to work as a USB drive, and show/navigate my tracks via the directory structure (no ID3 info required). Just how I like it. And it runs on a standard AA for about a month of my typical usage.
So, I prefer lots of options, even if I never need some of them.
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Re:Just because (Score:5, Insightful)
And about the Zune having DRM (is what I heard), I don't really understand that because it comes with a built-in wireless system so you can share your music with any other nearby Zune. Which seems like the opposite of what DRM is trying to accomplish.
Aren't those shared songs DRM-wrapped, meaning they're exactly what DRM is trying to accomplish? DRM isn't about trying to prevent "sharing", but rather about trying to control what you can do with the music you've bought.
Anyway, I don't think it's really all about the Zune being "uncool". I'm going to go out on a limb and make the following claim: The problem people have with the Zune is not the Zune itself, but rather that it's yet another lame attempt by Microsoft to take over a market that they perceive as a threat. Microsoft (rightly) perceived that the iPod was an indirect threat to their OS as well as their WMA format, and their response was to release an "iPod killer" that failed to understand the MP3-player market to a laughable degree.
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I used to be just like you. (Score:5, Interesting)
So I got the iPhone 3G. My Zune was then in the glove compartment of my car for a few months. I pulled it out a few weeks ago to try out the Zune games that seemed to be taking off. What I used to think was a sleek, intuitive interface on the Zune now looked clunky. The entire device actually felt cheap. The Zune hadn't changed though - I did. I got used to the iPhone. But anyway, I upgraded my Zune firmware, installed the Zune Games and actually tried the default ones out. Texas Hold'em was actually fun. But man, the experience is nothing - NOTHING - like the iPhone.
I guess I'll try selling my brown Zune on eBay before they become totally worthless.
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Re:I used to be just like you. (Score:4, Interesting)
So I got the iPhone 3G. My Zune was then in the glove compartment of my car for a few months. I pulled it out a few weeks ago to try out the Zune games that seemed to be taking off. What I used to think was a sleek, intuitive interface on the Zune now looked clunky.
The same thing happened to me, as well. The only thing I miss (and probably you do to) is the huge amount of storage space the Zune has, compared to the iPhone.
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Re:I used to be just like you. (Score:5, Funny)
...I haven't touched Pocket IE in a very long time.
Neither has Microsoft.
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Re:A Rockbox port would be awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a good example of Microsoft snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Zune had pretty good hardware at a reasonable price ... then they put (a) horrible firmware on it (b) THE WORST PC software imaginable for it (c) no way to put your own firmware on.
If they'd made it possible to reflash, a zillion Linux weenies would have bought the devices just to put Rockbox on them.
But no. Obsessive control is so much more important than actual, uh, sales. Remember, it worked for the music industry! Oh wait, it didn't.
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Re:A Rockbox port would be awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
(c) no way to put your own firmware on.
The other points may be valid, but- much as I hate to say it- this is irrelevant for 99.9% of the mass market I assume MS were going for.
If they'd made it possible to reflash, a zillion Linux weenies would have bought the devices just to put Rockbox on them.
No, they probably wouldn't have because it's an MS product.
And the hacker/modder/enthusiast market always overestimates its own importance anyway. Sorry to say this, but you're a relatively tiny percentage. Even if it had been massively successful in that small niche it would still have flopped relative to the mass market iPod.
Nothing wrong with spotting a niche and successfully filling it, of course. However, if your motives- and marketing budget- aim for success with the great unwashed hordes, then niche success is still a flop.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No product aimed at the zillion Linux weenies is ever going to be commercially successful. The reason is that there aren't a zillion Linux weenies. There probably aren't even 100,000 Linux weenies that would buy an MP3 player just so they could reflash it.
Re:What? So Microsoft should give up? No way! (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows got the market by price, not by opening up new frontiers.. They copied a lot of stuff from the Mac.. Just iimplemented it on a platform that became affordable to more users than the Apple hardware/software.
Then their 'hammering away' wasn't actually technical; they employed marketing campaigns, misinformation, and even error messages in their products to scare people away from competition (c.f. the old messages in windows 3 when you ran it on a competing DOS)..
MS doesn't (historically) play the 'competition' game.. It plays scorched earth tactics. Find a market it wants to play in.. Throw endless money at it, pushing products out for less than a commercial competitor in only that market can afford (c.f. IE vs Netscape, and other similar events in other markets). Wait until said competitor is dead, then lock it in, and perhaps charge more for the product afterwards, or let it stagnate and put no further development in, killing the development of a whole market.
In the iPod battle, it's Apple, not Microsoft, which pushes to new areas (all the functionality of the iPod touch, the ease of use, so on, so forth).. MS had the almost killer app in there with their wireless sharing, but with its limitations, nobody would have been that enthused about it..
So, MS did their usual "throw money at it, and see what sticks", Apple did design work, and targetted their resources and worked out what people would want to see..
There's a point at which you decide to cut your losses and run. MS have been trounced solidly on all fronts on this one. Now that MS seem to actually have to worry about money (wonder how much they lost in the market crashes), seems this loss maker that isn't going anywhere soon would be a good cut, rather than other areas that actually make a profit.
Wars are won (or at least not completely lost) by not fighting on too many fronts, especially ones where you're getting solidly thrashed by overwhelming opposition. Sometimes a ceasefire, or strategic withdrawl can save the whole show, rather than throwing everything you have in every direction.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
PCs for the most part aren't about fashion. PCs, for the most part, are for businesses and should be boring and un-distracting (and part of the problem with Vista is they forgot this, and blinged it out at the expense of hardware).
As well as administering Linux and BSD systems, I also admin a couple of Win2K3 servers. I sort of like Win2K3, because it's crushingly boring and just gets the job done. Once I've set up the scripting environment how I like it, I hardly notice it's there. That's how a business OS
Re:Had to remind myself what a Zune looked like. U (Score:5, Funny)
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