Mr. Wu expects Apple will introduce new and updated iPod models later in September or in October.

Or barring that, perhaps November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, or August. If Wu gets this one right, he is positioned to be the Gene Munster of the end of this week.

...Mr. Wu said "We are frankly underwhelmed by the specs (technical and aesthetics/design) on the much-hyped Zune device..."

Wu is right if Zune ends up looking like what Toshiba depicted in its recent FCC filing. A boxy, unsightly device is shown in the wireless testing photos.

Kudos to Microsoft though if those snaps are a decoy, and the real Zune about to go in production has a *lot* more of that iPod elegance. We'll see.

frabgod
http://www.zunerama.com

Redmond will release Zune in time for Christmas and sell nearly 50, not counting the ones Microsoft will send to Steve Jobs as a lousy joke. MS CEO Steve Ballmer will be arrested for biting a mother on her face in a department store while her son and daughter inspect the offerings at the iPod display. Ballmer will claim the report of the attack was a "gross exaggeration, spread by Microsoft's infinite enemies; I just brushed by her, looking for the Zune display" before settling out of court.

Defects will plague the players (all 42 that will finally be sold) and Microsoft will end up in a law suit with all its media vendors who will charge that Microsoft was refusing to pay royalties after placing a 1/800th of a second of silence at the end of the songs they were selling through Zune and claiming they were all "new, original and innovative works copyrighted Microsoft. Duh." After 8 months of litigation, the suit will be settled out of court after CEO Ballmer bites through one of the tires on the Sony attorney's Lexus in the court parking lot and is shot with a tranquilizer round by the Washington State Department of Animal Control.

Zune will be pulled off the shelves in June 2007 after MS issues a press release describing "its brilliant *pilot* of a massive, galaxy-stretching, mind-expanding portable media program yet to come" as a "total and unquestioned success." Analysts will point out, however, that after the law suits, media companies were so shocked to find nastier lawyers working for MS than they ever employed, MS was unable to contract any content for the Zune service at all.

MS will be forced to start its own recording label and will only be able to sign William Shatner scatting and singing obscene lyrics to television theme songs and, in a desperate play, offer downloadable monster movies of CEO Ballmer stalking and eating his neighbors' pets. Analysts, newspaper columnists, national security consultants and religious leaders will accurately predict the devastating Vistapocalypse that will attend the release of Vista on Thanksgiving Day, 2007. Microsoft, sure of its success, will make an unprecedented media move buying all of the available commercial air time on the SuperBowl broadcast to demonstrate Vista's "advanced features" during commercial breaks starring William Shatner and CEO Ballmer as 'Spock' aboard the new "Starship Vista."

Breaking with tradition, the spots will air live and will have to be improvised largely by Shatner when Ballmer's bright red Federation officer's jersey becomes hopelessly tangled around his head. "The new Aero screen saver is guaranteed to neutralize erectile dysfunction, hair loss and flatuence, right Science Officer Ballmer?" Shatner will announce, beaming from his familiar captain's chair, while muffled shrieks emanate from the crimson-shrouded head of the shirtless Ballmer, thrashing senselessly, struggling to pull the jersey down over his head.

By the third quarter, newscasters will announce during breaks in the action that Vista had been cracked by Eastern European and Central Asian terrorist groups, had already taken over all the Vista desktops in the western world and were using them to drain corporate bank accounts and send wire transfers to Al Qaeda. Ballmer, interviewed by sportcasters on the scene, will be by then hopelessly entangled in the red jersey with his hands caught in the sleeves and his arms suspended over his shoulders.

Unable to answer their questions with anything more than a strangled scream, Ballmer runs from the TV cameras and head-butts the Astrodome until he is unconscious.

The next day, President Bush will declare, "Now I know what the 'blue screens of death' thing-things were all about. These people are fellow travelleres to Al Qaeda and their collaborators in the Democratic Party," and orders the Justice Department to bring racketeering and terrorism charges against the company. MS attemtps to deflect the charges by changing its address to a vacant lot in Spokane and ordering its employees to hide their eyes behind their hands while at work on the Redmond campus.

Ballmer flees justice and is caught in a dragnet some months later by British Columbia animal control officers, answering a call about an insane pet-eating bear running amock Fort Nelson in northern British Columbia. There, CEO Ballmer will be shot dead after fatally chewing through the neck of one officer and nearly severing his head from his shoulders.

MS finally will collapse as thousands of employees leave, disgusted by the ethics of company convicted of abusive business practices and accused of shoddy engineering, racketeering, terrorism and cannibalism. The company loses most of its board and finally a court appoints a board of receivers to maintain the company until the Windows operating system can be sold to investors.

Microsoft XBOX survives as Shatner buys the division, keeping the tradename 'Microsoft' as the receivers could find no one else to buy the name of a company associated with crime, terrorism, insanity and cannibalism. Shatner will market a successful range of pornographic outer-space adventure games under the brand for the XBOX.

No question that iPod is the deserved market leader... but this analyst is so biased it strains credibility.

If I were an Apple shareholder, I'm not sure I'd want my analyst dismissing the technical know-how and sheer determination of Microsoft. It is just possible that Microsoft will affect Apple's domination of this market, *even* if Apple has a superior product. His clients deserve to know that.

Wu's point that Microsoft is missing out on the nano/shuffle market segment is simply incorrect. Even casual observers know that Microsoft plans a whole suite of Zune products and services, competing at every level of portable audio player. Those models may appear as soon as 2007, according to Microsoft's Robbi Bach.

And the battery issues: sure, Wireless is a battery-drainer. But Wireless is only "on when needed". How many minutes in an average day do you think a Zuner will have Wi-Fi turned on?

Wu maintains his "Buy" on Apple. Maybe he's right, but I'd say: Hold. Apple shareholders will know much more in two months. And during that time, they can find an analyst who hasn't drunk the Cupertino kool-aid.

Zunerama

http://www.Zunerama.com