Fri 5 Oct 2007
New Zune threatens Microsoft’s partners
Posted by Jason T. under Apple, Microsoft
[2] Comments
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Welcome to the social? Or is it the anti-social? Microsoft this week announced some new additions to the Zune product family. There is a new Zune 4GB, Zune 8GB, and Zune 80GB. The 4 and 8Gb models would be competitors to Apple’s iPod Nano. Well, I guess the previous generation of Nano, given the recent update to the iPod line. The 80GB remains in the larger, hard-drive based form factor.
Even that model looks rather outdated already given the recent update of the iPod Classic to an 80 or 160GB hard-drive. The larger Zune does have a slightly bigger screen than the iPod Classic, but can’t hold a candle to the iPod Touch (which however has significantly smaller storage capacity).
Thee new Zunes will certainly allow Microsoft to gain some market share, but most likely at the cost of its partners, and not Apple. American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu said:
“…as we have long believed, we view the Zune as more of a competitive threat to its Windows Media partners including SanDisk, Sony, Samsung, LG, Verizon, Toshiba, and Philips as opposed to Apple and iPod.”
Sales of the Zune have been rather disappointing since launch, but Microsoft is taking more direct aim at Apple by matching the $249, $199, and $149 price points that Apple has come to dominate in the digital music player arena.
I wonder how the other Windows Media-based device makers feel about the Zunes? The Zune has an independent marketplace and uses different DRM technology from both Apple and MS’s partner channel, making songs purchased from the Zune marketplace just as locked to the device as those purchased from iTunes are locked to the iPod. New Zune sales will potentially take away revenue not only from their partner hardware vendors, but also companies hosting Windows Media-based online music stores. It will be very interesting to see how these new Zunes fare through the holiday and how they compete against the iPod lineup.
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Pingback from ipod » New Zune threatens Microsoft(’s partners)
October 5th, 2007 at 1:36 pm[...] Tecno-Advantage wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt … hold a candle to the iPod Touch (which however has significantly smaller storage capacity)…. … oshiba, and Philips as opposed to Apple and iPod…. … partner channel, making songs purchased from the Zune marketplace just as locked to the device as those purchased from iTunes are locked to the iPod….Even that model looks rather outdated already given the recent update of the iPod Classic to an 80 or 160GB hard-drive…. [...]
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Pingback from microsoft » New Zune threatens Microsoft(’s partners)
October 6th, 2007 at 2:06 am[...] Cardinal Seán’s Blog wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptMicrosoft this week announced some new additions to the Zune product family….Sales of the Zune have been rather disappointing since launch, but Microsoft is taking more direct aim at Apple by matching the $249, $199, and $149 price points t…Thee new Zunes will certainly allow Microsoft to gain some market share, but most likely at the cost of its partners, and not Apple…. [...]