Farewell, Zune: Microsoft will discontinue its iPod rival

March 14, 2011 By Molly McHugh

After defending the questioned longevity of its media player, a Microsoft source admits the Zune is on its way out.

It’s been a long time coming. Following whispers for some time now that Microsoft has been in the process of moving Zune to the great beyond, today Bloomberg has confirmation of those rumors. According to the site, Microsoft will terminate all production of new Zune music and video players due to a lack of demand. At the same time, an insider says the company will be shifting “its focus to other devices.”

Last month, Microsoft failed to make any mention of Zune at Mobile World Congress, creating suspicion that the iPod rival wasn’t long for this world. But Microsoft tried to downplay any rumor of Zune’s termination, directly saying “Zune is not dead” and even throwing in a bold “[and] will never die!” for good measure.

But we’ve all seen this coming. Microsoft hasn’t released updated Zune hardware since 2009, and the recent buzz surrounding a cloud-based multimedia project codenamed “Ventura” could be the music-host-meets-social media follow-up to the failed PMP. Whatever Ventura’s purpose is, though, for the time being Zune software will live on. It will be integrated into Windows Phone 7 devices and Xbox 360 consoles. A company statement would only go so far as to say, “Our long-term strategy focuses on the strength of the entire Zune ecosystem across Microsoft platforms.”

The Zune never reached Microsoft’s expectations for it. The company believed it could ably compete with – and even threaten – the success of the iPod. And while it found a following of Apple-loathing, Windows loyalists, it never managed to pull in the type of numbers the iPod was able to in its sleep.

Zune, you had a short run at it (a measly five years), and it feels we hardly knew ye. Now, we’re going to continue and keep our ear to the ground for work on the inevitable (we hope) success of the Windows Phone update and perhaps more on what exactly Ventura will become.

Showing 12 comments

Nicholas Eix at 3:59pm 15th March 2011 I think that this article needs to be updated... according to this article http://www.9to5mac.com/56270/microsoft-zunes-not-... , the Zune team dismissed the rumor yesterday of the Zune being dead.
BurntHam77 at 8:17am 15th March 2011 "Apple-loathing, Windows loyalists"? Well that's a little ridiculous. It is possible to really like one company's product and not hate the product of the competition. I have used a few different MP3 players over the years (Rio, Creative Labs Zen, Zune HD, iPod Classic, Zune 120), and my current, the Zune 120, is by far my favorite. It has a lot of storage, a big screen, intuitive controls, and a smooth interface. The Zune software actually made me want to buy the hardware. Sure, it's not "HD" but I don't need my portable media player to handle HD. I will keep this thing until it dies.
Guilden_NL at 8:18pm 14th March 2011 I bought 2 Zunes when it was released: one for our teen-aged son and one for me. The build quality was good, better than the Crapple stuff. But MSFT's management behind the Zune Marketplace was an absolute flustercluck! I am an Enterprise Architect with a company many times larger than MSFT and I couldn't get past the lack of experience, or even caring about customer experience at MSFT around the Zune Marketplace. MSFT's Zune Marketplace was a perfect example of Steve Ballmer's deathly toxic "leadership" at MSFT - each of these very visible attempts to reinvent a terminally dead company are headed by clueless idiots, with zero lack of accountability and worse, an inward view of their belly button and zero acknowledgement of the market. MSFT needs to hire from outside and wipe a good portion of its management off the payroll, starting with Ballmer. I logged into the Marketplace a total of four times. Three times it was down due to "Marketplace improvements." It was 7 available out of 11 attempts for our son. We converted CDs to MP3s, bought on Amazon MP3 Marketplace and yes, pulled many MP3s down from Torrent files or where ever. The most out of date eCommerce architect could design an architecture to allow for a completely new site to be promoted without customer disruption. MSFT must have allocated $19.99/month for their hosting. What a flustercluck! So MSFT ended up with a very good device and zero traction with their customer base. Sound familiar? How much does Steve Ballsack make? Why hasn't MSFT's BoD sacked that sack of Shiesse and replaced him with someone with at least half a brain. I'll volunteer to take on the CEO role and be paid 1% of the gain in profitability each year for five years. How about it MSFT BoD? What's that? You're too busy sucking up Steve Job's flatulence?
1. ioman at 8:20pm 14th March 2011 What do you think about their credit system for purchases? I always thought that was rather silly.
2. jonas at 8:57pm 14th March 2011 I've been using the zune marketplace for... 3 years? Maybe a bit more, not sure, but I've never had an issue with it, barring a couple of buggy album permissions. Perhaps you just had bad luck. /shrug
3. Citizenken at 6:06pm 26th March 2011 Spot on. Had 2 Zunes-great hardware, horrible software. Marketplace was a joke. I was waiting for a 12 year Old to hack the software so I could use Explorer To drag and drop-like my Zen stuff. Late, yes, lamented no.
jonas at 7:53pm 14th March 2011 I never did understand how the zune didn't take off. The interface was much more intuitive, the hardware was tougher, and the audio quality was far superior to any ipod that I ever owned. Not to mention the zune software... cmon, $1 a track through itunes? Or $15 a month for all you can eat? Its a no-brainer.
anon at 7:38pm 14th March 2011 Suweet! Now i can pick one of these puppies up for sale.
chmoss at 7:37pm 14th March 2011 Microsoft never learned that good enough is NOT good enough. Merely because a product keeps current buyers happy does not mean that it will attract new buyers. Regular product refreshes keep a product competitive with new entrants - and help ensure that current users who want to upgrade for more capability have a product to upgrade to within the line. People don't buy a newer version - unless it does something they want or need - like more capacity, better screen, less weight - or even something as trivial as a new color.
1. jojoj921 at 3:23am 15th March 2011 You mean like Apple that never gives you more capacity, industry standard interfaces or even white, oops sorry he new ipad comes in white. Actually the iPad2 is awesome in operation so ignore this post
Ulysses Rodriguez at 6:31pm 14th March 2011 You guys are too Apple influenced. The Zune is a nice platform of hardware that does not need to be updated every year. My cousin recently bought a Zune HD and he loves it over the iPod touch he purchased in 2009 .
1. Chad Mason at 7:03pm 14th March 2011 Ive had my Zune for just about a year now and I love it! it blows away the ipod any day. My wife love it so much she also got rid of her ipod for a Zune a few months ago. This makes me sad. I totally agree with you that there is no need for a hardware update every year. Apple has convinced people that there way is the only way and every year people need to have the a "newer version" of the same thing.