Microsoft Confirms Zune Music Devices

July 24, 2006 By Geoff Duncan

Responding to a rumor frenzy, Microsoft has confirmed it will launch a line of portable media devices under the name Zune, taking on Apple's iPod by the end of 2006.

Microsoft has confirmed that the company plans to launch portable music and media devices under the brand name Zune. Although details of any specific products are very sketchy, the announcement is being viewed by the industry as Microsoft finally stepping up to the plate to challenge the market dominance of Apple’s iPod portable music and video players. The move is a long time coming: Apple introduced the iPod in late 2001.

According to Microsoft, the first Zune device will be a music player sporting hard drive-based storage and, like the MusicGremlin’s Gremlin MG-1000, will offering Wi-Fi based connectivity and song purchasing. Microsoft plans to leverage the Zune’s wireless capabilities to communicate with other Zune users, share playlists, recommend tracks, and potentially share music with one another. Zune users will be able to exchange data with other Microsoft platforms such as the Xbox 360 and devices powered by Windows Mobile, although no specifics have been revealed.

Microsoft has not set a launch date for the Zune player, and has not revealed pricing information or how Zune and its related download service will interact with the company’s existing music offerings, including MSN Music and the new Urge partnership with MTV. Also unclear: Zune’s relationship to Microsoft’s PlaysForSure initiative, how the Zune will interact with non-Microsoft music services like Napster and Rhapsody, or whether songs purchased for the Zune will be transferrable to other devices. One thing is reasonable certain: the Zune will not be compatible with tunes purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, nor will protected tracks purchased for the Zune work with Apple’s iPod/iTunes platform.

Industry talk os positioning the Zune as Microsoft’s attempt to create an “iPod killer,” but some see the company’s Zune initiative as less of a threat to Apple as it is to companies making portable music players already trying to compete with the iPod. Those companies

Showing 5 comments

bob steele at 10:45am 12th March 2008 never mind found answer. Thanks anyway bobsharon40@yahoo.com
bob steele at 10:42am 12th March 2008 This is not a comment, but a very serious question. I have a pacemaker, got a zune for christmas and am not sure how the unit will affect my pace maker. Tried to find answer in tech help but couldn't find w/o spending all day visiting each segment of your tech info. Please give me info on this question.
Sinister_angel at 11:53am 11th November 2006 i can't wait till the ZUNE comes out...and i'm not really worried about the competitive part. It's better than the ipod and if u look at the comparisons the Zune has a japanese manufacturer and the ipod has a taiwanese..who has better technology that the japanese. plus it took the ipod 6 generations to improve its features....how horrible is that! Zune will most likely come out with better ones but for now it beats the long time leading ipod haha
Tim Stevens at 10:11am 25th July 2006 This thing is ugly. For it to even compete, not only does it need to be simple, like iTunes and the iPod, but it needs to look sexy.

Microsoft has a tendency to try to over complicate things (hell, look at MS Office!) We dont need everything under the sun for features on the device, and we dont need windows media player to be super complex. Make it easy to transfer music!
Ian Bell and Dan Gaul at 10:40am 24th July 2006 I really want this device to make it, but I am worried that Microsoft will simply not stand behind it like they should.

Rob Enderle has a great article on why it could fail: http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback131.html simply put, Microsoft will need to dump a lot of marketing dollars into this.