MS is pretty much shooting themselves in the foot with this thing.

To be a success, MS will have to not just out-innovate Apple on not just Day 1 of Zune's release but nearly EVERY other MONTH. Just look at the ipod 2001 (5 GB, music only, Mac, only, no store) and where is stands just 5 years and about 50 innovations later ...

MS cannot crank out a OS (their CORE business!) in 5 YEARS! It took them NINE years to come up an OS to come near the palm/treo.

It took them a year to copy itunes and another year after to come up with URGE - both failures. What have they learned in 6 months since?

WiFi? They cannot get plays4sure to work correctly when it's DIRECTLY plugged in - how is wireless going to work? And when not at home, how much? $15.99 a month?

MS has been selling online music tracks since 1999 and has basically failed with consumers no matter what it's been called or where and now they hope to out compete their former partners to fight itunes/ipod/Apple?

If they cannot defeat Linksys, or AOL (In their other consumer ventures) (never mind Apple), how do they expect to beat Creative, Sony, Samsung, SAnDisk, Toshiba or iriver?

Good luck explaining to consumers, it's WMA but not the kind everyone else is selling, it's MS WMA.

Community? Who here thinks a corporation can start a organic community? Like Walmart's new MySpace? MTV can't get an organic community going, how is MS?

Bill Gates was smart enough to see that he has no idea what consumers want in the 21st century - better to go do something altrustic. Steve ballmer is not that clever. He still thinks throwing a chair will get him attention and market share - when all you get is ridicule and a hole in the wall.

Now that Ms is spending $40 billion to prop up Ballmer's stock options, MS is actually going to need a CEO who can make money and not spend $400 each to sell every XBox.

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jbelkin wrote:
Now that Ms is spending $40 billion to prop up Ballmer's stock options, MS is actually going to need a CEO who can make money and not spend $400 each to sell every XBox.

Nothing funnier than a Microsoft hater. MSFT has a P/E of 20 and pays a dividend. This while likely 9-12 months away from general distribution of its next-generation operating system (late enough to miss two lucrative buying periods) and while getting ready to embark on an expensive start-from-scratch battle against an entrenched and wildly popular competitor. Due to the ubiquity of their software, they have distribution that Apple had to beg, plead, and license for (think "HP iPod") just two years ago. Makes you wonder why Microsoft doesn't have a cool store in the mall, until you realize, Microsoft doesn't have to!

Nice try, Bosco! (Gotta love those M$ fanboys!)

Their financial position owes more to sheer volume and the position they have as a monopoly than to anything else. The distribution they own as the distributor of an OS has NOTHING to do with the music market.

Face it, once again, M$ is playing second fiddle to Apple; performing NO innovation, merely copying Apple's technology - again.

Like all monopolies, M$ is resting on their laurels, producing no more than they have to to maintain their position in the market, allowing the monopoly to rake in the cash, not realizing that time, and the market, will catch up to them, like it eventually does all monopolies.

Read the first poster again, he's got some really telling points, and this time, leave your fanboy attitude behind - you just might learn something.

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rwahrens wrote:
Read the first poster again, he's got some really telling points, and this time, leave your fanboy attitude behind - you just might learn something.

If you read the first poster you note that it took Microsoft NINE years to make an OS that comes close to Palm/Treo. What this proves is that Microsoft is in these things for the long term: with that amount of cash and market share in their core market, they can afford to. No-one in their right mind would bet (which is what playing the stock market is) on Microsoft NOT eventually achieving their aim of being number one in that market if that's what they want.

And the advent of Zune appears to show that they are now committing to the long haul. So if you want to 'bet' anything, take the long view. iPod will be history, but not for a decade at least.

In the meantime, enjoy the product of the moment, principally for it's highly developed 'eco-system' that Mr Wu mentions as one of it's current USPs. Want to get a Zune integrated in your car stereo anyone???

--
Dick

Does anyone in their right mind actually believe that all of the fan-boys who are going to run out and buy a Zune, were actually going to buy and iPod to begin with? Think again and look up the term “tragically hip”.

MS can afford to lose billions on this; that alone does not mean they will be successful. The conclusion put forth by others, I believe is correct: This is going to harm the others far more than Apple. Ask Sony how much they have been able to dent the Apple behemoth. And again all this speculation rests on the fact of Apple doing nothing to prevent it. Does anyone truly believe Apple will let MS take this from them? When Appple lost the OS wars Steve wasn’t at the helm, this time he is, and Apple ain’t gonna let that happen again.

Lastly, hmmm closed propriety system controlling the whole widget, did the same with the X-Box, can’t imagine where MS got that idea. Funny thing is when Apple does it it’s a horrible thing likely to cause the implosion of the universe, when MS does the same thing, its the best thing since sliced bread. If MS ever had an original idea I truly believe that it would cause a paradox in the whole space-time continuum and reality, as we know it would unravel.

Picture this. Zune arrives. It's MS only. Closed beyond closed.

Day two. Apple licenses FairPlay to SanDisk, iRiver, and Sony.

Game over.

MS is out millions if not billions in potential lost sales.

Chance of it happening is 50-50 for now.

Microsoft is persistent. And like old-money types, it's not enough that they succeed — the peasants (in this case, Apple) must also fail.

Zune will hit the market with some built-in advantages: M$ fanboys will snap them up, and it won't surprise me if Microsoft pulls one of their monopolistic tactics ("Vista ain't done 'til QuickTime don't run") to cripple the iPod ecosystem. Apple could sue, but by the time the defense drags things out it could well be all over.

One way for Apple to fight back would be to undercut Doze by encouraging people to move to other operating systems. Licensing FairPlay & porting QuickTime to Linux could help there. Both of those ideas are blue-sky enough; some other ideas I had are farfetched enough to be sub-orbital.

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rwahrens wrote:
Nice try, Bosco! (Gotta love those M$ fanboys!)

Their financial position owes more to sheer volume and the position they have as a monopoly than to anything else. The distribution they own as the distributor of an OS has NOTHING to do with the music market.

Heh. Calling me a Microsoft fanboy. You're kinda new here huh? I make an iPod accessory and have shipped custom software for managing fleets of the things. Even my arch-nemesis Biff will admit that I know my iPod car stereo stuff better than most.

But to the facts of the argument... Distribution means everything. It's why the HP iPods happened. HP had existing distribution in the office supply stores (Office Depot, Staples, etc.). HP also had existing distribution through big box retailers (Costco, WalMart, Target, etc.). It was easier and cheaper for Apple to reach these channels by slapping HP's logo on the box than by developing the channels itself. Note that you can't walk into Office Depot today and buy an iPod. Count on Zune and Zune gift cards being available at Office Depot from Day 1. That's what having distribution like Microsoft has gets you.

As others have noted, they are in for the long haul. It will be a long war. They have some key advantages they can bring to the problem, just as Apple has some key advantages it has applied.

But when you bring the garbage about "Steve Balmer monkey this" and "convicted monopolist pig that", you're just acting like a Hezbollian rocket tosser. Leave it at the door and discuss the issues intelligently.

Bosco a MS fanboy? Hardly.

Sick, twisted and demented, maybe. Annoying to Biff in particular, definitely. But not a MS fanboy.

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jbelkin wrote:
MS is pretty much shooting themselves in the foot with this thing.

To be a success, MS will have to not just out-innovate Apple on not just Day 1 of Zune's release but nearly EVERY other MONTH. Just look at the ipod 2001 (5 GB, music only, Mac, only, no store) and where is stands just 5 years and about 50 innovations later ...

Shooting itself in the foot? Perhaps. But as for being a success - you may not have noticed but Microsoft is already a success. Microsoft will probably never out-innovate Apple, today or any other day. But out-perform (in gross terms)? It's going to go on doing that for a long time yet.

Quality v. quantity? I'll buy quality, but bet on quantity. I just don't have to like it.

Interesting comments so far. Like Bosco, I bellive that MS distribution network will get the players out. However, the real market for portable music players is the 15 to 35 crowd, and ready availability won't lure them over: cool will. Look at an X-Box 360 and an iPod side by side, and you can see what I mean. As the father to three in the target audience, I believe I understand them a little. My 15 year old daughter would NOT own anything that wasn't "way cool" and her friends are the same. One of her friends received an iRiver MP3 player for Cristmas and the rest of the gang consoled her that if she got earbuds w/ white cables and kept in her purse, no one would know! The youth market lives and breathes cool, and I can't imagine MS producing a MP3 player that will be half as cool as the iPod. Even the Motorola Rokr with iTunes was deemed un-cool, even though the Razr - currently black is the hippest - is the hotest cell phone on the market.
Who knows really. I look forward to seeing what the "evil empire" puts out. I will never buy one , or two or three or four as I have iPods.

As I read through all the post from the MS haters, I could not help but marvel at their apparent ignorance. I especially like it when they start to talk about how MS does not innovate but instead just copies from apple. The reason I find this so funny……..wait for it…………here it comes………this bombshell is gonna make all you MS haters feel stupid…………MS owns the patent for most of the technology found in the IPod. Read it and weep all you MS haters http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/168601146

Thank you for your comments, but because you or anyone else says something doesn't make it true. MS does not own the patent on the technology. It has a claim over it, but it does not own the patent.

Your main ploy appears to be to call posts here from Microsoft haters. This is a common attack from those whose plank differs from others. Those who disagree with the US's situation in Iraq are Bush-haters or America-haters. Those who disagree with Microsoft's dominance in so many areas of IT are Microsoft haters. That's a pathetic self-defeating approach.

This is an Apple-oriented site. Get over it.

Addendum: Please show how the AutoDJ patent covers the hardware of the iPod and song selection. It appears to me to be something more akin to generating weighted playlists within iTunes, rather than the song selection in the portable music player itself. I can't see how the two are related.