Owners of Microsoft’s 30GB Zune media player received an unexpected surprise on December 31 when their devices stopped working properly and locked up during the startup process. The self-bricking appears to have begun 24 hours before the date rollover into 2009, and so far there aren’t any fixes available.

I’m speechless, because it’s hard to talk while laughing out loud.

This is an unwelcome New Year’s “gift” for Zune owners and may very well be the end of the product as any kind of, well, “player” in the market.

Zune owners have learned the true meaning behind the subscription model for music: It applies to the hardware too.

A friend in Texas called last night and compared the small, dedicated group of Zune users to the Apple faithful of the early 1990’s. So I thought about it for a while and realized that the underdog holds a special spot in our culture. And that led me to think about Apple now being the leader in applied technology. Apple has gone beyond the Mac vs PC race to touch more lives than MS ever did. Most every adolescent in the world knows the utility of an iPod.And whatever smart phone you use in the next few years the feature set on it came about as a direct result of the efforts of the iPhone team at Apple. So while my first post was harsh in making fun of the plight of the Zuners,  on reflection they deserve the same consideration as any group of the mentally challenged.  Therapy and rehabilitation.

danthemason - 01 January 2009 07:31 AM

A friend in Texas called last night and compared the small, dedicated group of Zune users to the Apple faithful of the early 1990’s. So I thought about it for a while and realized that the underdog holds a special spot in our culture. And that led me to think about Apple now being the leader in applied technology. Apple has gone beyond the Mac vs PC race to touch more lives than MS ever did. Most every adolescent in the world knows the utility of an iPod.And whatever smart phone you use in the next few years the feature set on it came about as a direct result of the efforts of the iPhone team at Apple. So while my first post was harsh in making fun of the plight of the Zuners,  on reflection they deserve the same consideration as any group of the mentally challenged.  Therapy and rehabilitation.

There is one important difference between the Mac users and the Zune users.  We Mac users were clinging to a superior product hoping the world would notice and come aboard.  The Zune users are clinging to an inferior product hoping others won’t come aboard so that they may retain the illusion of having “elite” status.  Kinda weird really.

I’m just beyond amazed at how poorly run that company is - and to some extent, always has been.

Mayor Quimby - 01 January 2009 06:30 PM

I’m just beyond amazed at how poorly run that company is - and to some extent, always has been.

I agree. I couldn’t work out why Ballmer is in charge. However I think that he was responsible for the original deal with IBM which handed the company the keys to the kingdom so there you have it.

Now there you have a company that a “CEO is dying” rumor could really help.