Zune fails Christmas test — expect serious add-ons
By Gareth Powell
There is market analysis, anecdotal evidence and statistics. Rarely do they tell the same story. This time they do.
Over Christmas Microsoft’s Zune simply did not budge iPod from its pre-eminent position as a providor of mobile sound. According to market researcher Current Analysis Zune captured a decent slice of the hard-drive-based audio player market at large retail stores but did not make the top 10 list of models in overall sales.
Current Analysis’ study found that Apple accounted for 64 per cent of digital audio devices sold during the period, Sandisk for 22 per cent and Microsoft for 3 per cent. That is not happy news for Microsoft.
Anecdotal evidence garnered in Britain at parties over Christmas showed that young people — the current target audience — who knew about Zune (many did not) thought it naff and that only losers would get something like the Zune. However, they did not mind getting an MP3 model which was NOT an iPod providing it was very inexpensive.
Microsoft is not stupid. It will see that Zune as it stands is not a serious contestant, that it did not work out over Chrismas and that it needs repositioning. Expect to see a redesign — the current version is very ugly — but, much more important, a slew of add-ons which will help differentiate it from iPod.
Microsoft is playing a long game. It needs to make the Zune attractive to at least one segment of the market, preferably several. To do that it has to offer downloadable video, downloadable tunes and, very possibly, BlueTooth for automatic downloading and swapping, and earphones which has some pretensions to style.
Microsoft has always had a tough time selling hardware — has anyone got one of the Microsoft ergonomic keyboards on their computer? – but it is now under new management and it would appear that Zune is a key part of its marketing strategy. The Zune you see next Christmas will not be anything like the Zune you saw this.
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Stumble It!
January 6th, 2007
It’s not just appearences. I’m one of the people who actually *likes* the Zune’s look – but still didn’t buy one. I was quite ready to get one until it hit the stores and I saw the feature list.
- No portable hard drive mode.
- Only 30GB size.
- WiFi is for sharing only – can’t use it to sync or do anything else.
- Sharing is 3×3 only – I can accept that for DRM music, but why for MY files?
- Can’t share movies, just music and pictures.
- No text reader (which would be pointless since you can’t put files on the device)
- No extra features like Outlook syncing.
Some people have made a big deal out of the Zune’s slightly larger size – it’s not that much bigger or heavier and most it is to accommodate the larger screen, so I can live with that.
The WiFi feature could have been awesome, but it’s crippled to the point where it can ONLY be used if you have a friend with a Zune. Chicken and egg problem.
In the end, the one new feature – WiFi is so limited as to be nearly useless, and the device is missing other features that make the iPod and other MP3 devices like the iRiver DAPs generally useful – yet it costs as much as an iPod of similar storage size.
January 6th, 2007
Hey what the heck! Let’s give MS 20 years to catch up with Apple’s iPOD. It’s been at leat that long that they been trying catch up with Apple’s operating system too!
January 6th, 2007
I don’t get it. After christmas if Zune has 10 to 15 % of harddrive based market then how on earth its not successfull. I think MS should be very happy with the performance. You just cannot compare Zune to sub $200 devices. Thats just stupid.
I think it has done very well within the hard drive based market and achived what G1 was intended for. That is to get a foot in. It sure does need improvement which will be coming in G2 and starting g2 with 10 to 15% market is pretty good.
January 6th, 2007
I had an Archos 20g hard drive/mp3 player and I thought it was the best!
When the iPod video came out I gave the iPod a try and I loved. Ipod is so easy to use unlike the Archos I had and the new Philips hd based mp3 players.
I felt the same way about iPods and their ubiquity, but if you owned one you would think the other players around look and feel like @#$%, really.
Just show a child all the mp3 players and ask which of them they like, and wait for the asnwer.
When shown all the mp3 players at Compusa, my 5 yo nephew did not hesitate to choose the iPod.
January 8th, 2007
Wow holy bias review. Gareth why not just say you are an apple fanboy?
March 26th, 2007
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