got to admit that my neighbors zune is much cooler than I thought it would be (or what people claim on this forum). I won't buy one now, but when I replace my ipod in 2007 I will consider a 2nd gen Zune. The screen is much nicer and the UI is very easy and cool.

They must be buying the things themselves. In every tech store I have visited in this area the sales people are indicating sales have been flat after the initial burst of curiosity buyers.

Hey, everyone has their own "uses" for an MP3 player. With the market full of players and people with different "uses", wants, and needs, why give the Zune a bad rap? Have you tried it yet? Do you really know what you are talking about? Time will tell and if they do not up stage the Ipod craze, what does it really matter.

Who cares? Doesn't anyone who ever wanted an MP3 player have one by now? MS is 5 years too late.

Only one million Zunes by next summer?

Yeah, that's quite the groundspring of consumer backlash against the iPod. I guess the anti-iPod crowd isn't as numerous as they are loud.

After getting a preview Zune and using it for several weeks, I'm impressed. It has a lot of really nice features and is extremely user-friendly. For a first-gen player it hits the ground running. Still though, everyone's DRM can kiss my... (I'm just still not used to the idea of renting the music I buy)...

lmao its funny the ones who give a bad rep about the zune probably dont know how to use it. and the ones who do like it, do know how to use it. hmm go get an education

They need to decrease the price, lose a little more money on each unit... sell it less than a regular 30GB HDD. Then I'll buy it, rip out the HDD and use it just for storage. The ugly brown casing and software can then be thrown out.

I'm assuming that the Zune can be used on OSX in much the same way that the ipod can be used on windows??? Like f*** it will

What would be interesting is if MS wrote an interface that took FairPlay, and cracked it, only to put WMDRM on it. Wouldn't that put Jobs panties in a bunch!!

I tried a zune and well I was about as disappointed as you can get. If it was the year 2000 and it was a first of its kind then sure, it would be ok. I will tell you one thing it doesn't hold a candle to the ipod video. I would take that anyday for 250 over the zune, heck would rather have a creative zen. Who would rather have a zune? All apple needs to do is have a subscription model and I can guarantee they will own the market even more then they do now with no chance for anyone else.

I can't even imagine what apple could come up with if they had the kind of money microsoft has. I mean what the heck was this? The zune really is ugly. It's not really fun to use when your used to an ipod. it has wifi that does nothing more then share a song or picture with your buddy who probably doesn't have a zune. So what are you going to do. Microsoft's zune only has a chance if somehow apple goes bankrupt or else apple does a microsoft and lets their product stagnate for years before updating it. Or maybe they will do another microsoft and still have a majority marketshare even after 5 years of sitting on the next one eh?

"I can't even imagine what apple could come up with if they had the kind of money microsoft has"

Stronger DRM.

"The zune really is ugly"

Very debatable.

"it has wifi that does nothing more then share a song or picture with your buddy who probably doesn't have a zune"

You're complaining about a feature that apple dosen't have...just to complain about the extra feature? That's pretty funny.

What's kind of cool is I plugged my zune into my coworkers machine and he was able to connect my zune with the zune player as guest and then sync'd all my mp3's to his mahcine and all his mp3's to my zune. Last time I tried syncing the ipod with a different machine it got so mad at me it erased my entire ipod. Oh yea...you can use the ephpod 'hack'.

I just don't get what your complaints about the zune are...basically your only complaint is that it has a wifi feature...oh and it has a radio, what was MS thinking that's another useless feature!! down with zune!!

I don't think it's even 1/5 as bad as some people make it out to be. It's not a stellar device by any means, it is, after all just another mp3 player - but it's not horrible. I have used one and I don't get people talking about how horrible the interface is - it's bright, it's got a big screen and everything is clear on there. The ONLY complaints are that to get to the equalizer you have to move all the way back to get into the settings, and that when you transfer music through wifi, the songs stops on both players. Something remedied easily by a firmware update.
Someone tell me otherwise why it's so horrible?
It's still better than an Ipod because the Zune Marketplace has subscription downloads, getting you an unlimited amount of mp3s for $15 a month. I WAS concerned that the Zune Marketplace would be another Itunes where you'd have to buy or nada. But it's not.
It plays non-drm and zune-drm music, as well as a host of formats. It plays video, shows photos, the sound is pretty good. People complaining about transferring music - are you kidding me? The Zune marketplace is nicer than Itunes on so many levels, it's built on the same technology as WMP11, so if you use windows xp and wmp10-11, then it should be old news.
I will not buy an ipod. Why? Because Itunes doesnt have a subscription service, and I prefer that to HAVING to buy music - my flavors in music change all the time, and I have no problem buying what I think I will listen to forever. Would I want to listen to "Come with me" by P.Diddy this month and maybe for the next few months? Sure - it's a catchy song. Would I buy the song for 80-99c? Hell no. For the cost of a newly released CD every month, I can download from a pick of 2 million songs every month and throw them on my mp3 player. For the cost of a CD, you can throw 10, maybe 12 songs on your Ipod.
That's my point. And the sooner people wise up and become aware of the freedom of subscription downloads, the more they'll buy players that can store and play this type of music.

Then there are people talking about how bulky it is, and how ugly it is. I feel some of you have never used the thing. While I agree that it could be sexier, it's not at all bulky. It's about the same size as an ipod, just a more rectangular, with squared rather than rounded egdes and less classy looking overall. But it's so much lighter than the Ipod, I don't mind the disadvantages per se. I think Volvo's are ugly as hell but would I buy one? Yes! It's a great, reliable vehicle. But it boils down to trends, doesn't it? Obviously, so many people would rather have something that looks real good but has no outstanding function/features, than something that kicks butt featurewise, but looks drab. Well, I think they'll hit the 1million mark for June. I think people are wising up to the subscription download scheme, and see the benefit in not jumping to buy any catchy song on the radio. Eventually I'm sure the zune will get TV/Movie downloads and there'll be a level field. If only Apple would add subscription downloads to Itunes, they'd be undeniable in any book.

"1 million players by the end of June 2007"

That must be some good stuff they're smoking or someone is unrealistically optimistic.

Not really. Last year Apple sold 11 million iPods during the last quarter of the year. Given the increasing popularity of digital audio players in general the 14 to 16 million estimate cited in Mr. Oswald's article seems quite reasonable. If MS sells 1 Zune for every 30 iPods sold they would sell ~.5 million this holiday season. If they sold 25 thousand per week which is an anemic number they would have over a million by June.

Perhaps you should have read beyond the headline of the story. MS hasn't released Zune in Europe or Asia which definitely limits their potential sales and plans on releasing additional models next year. I would expect to see sales improve once the new models arrive and the Zune begins to see international sales.

HAHAHA!

GOOD LUCK!

My friend bought a Zune just to see if there was anything worthwhile about it, and guess what...

HE RETURNED THAT PIECE OF TRASH A DAY LATER.

The Zune is the biggest (and I do mean big and clunky) piece of garbage. Horrible interface, even worse connectivity, buggy software and worst of all, big and ugly.

Good luck selling a million pieces of trash... hahahaha

That counts anyway. Even if you return it later, so thanks to your friends and 999K other people like that, microsoft will score the mil.

Same here. My wife's sister bought one and it was surprising bad. Adding songs were a major hassle, too. Expect Zune to be dead by June!

Get a life, really. I own a Zune, and I'm no MS fanboi. The player does have its issues (wireless sometimes shuts itself off, sync disconnect errors)

As for ugly, yeah i think the brown Zune is gross but my black one meets my taste. As for clunky, it fits my hand just fine, good weight, and the songs and videos I have on there make it worth it. As for the actual on-board interface, I found it wonderfully easy to use. I let the family try it out and everyone including my aging mum was able to operate it.

It has its issues, but if MS can keep it relevant, and slim it down I think it has a winner.

I would say only if it somehow does something better then apple. It won't though I mean the wheel interface is great, its fast and it has itunes store that supports most everything. So why would you RATHER have a zune? I mean if nothing else on the market was available, maybe. But not when you could just as easy have an ipod, and for the same price, come on.

When a extremely wealthy company with as much name recognition and marketing power not to mention r&d money that microsoft has. when they create a product people should expect something amazing. when its just another piece of junk that doesn't stand out among the aged, buggy no brand mp3 players microsoft is going to hear about it.

I must say though the zune lives up to the reputation of microsoft very well, very well indeed. Microsoft follows the lead of its competitors. they have never been able to beat out competition with a superior better product ever. How many products has microsoft came out with recently as a copycat? live search, xbox, ie7, windows defender, one care live, half the features of vista. I mean they seriously can't come up with an original idea, ever. They bank on the industry's innovation and market it as their own. I think their r&d is hiring thousands of spies at other companies and have them submit the product list that is successful for every market leader in the entire industry and see what they are doing so they can roll out something. Then bank on it, or buy the company out. I still can't believe they couldn't buid their own antispyware program or anti virus but bought third party companies to do that for them. How sad is that. Microsoft ahs access to the windows engineers, source code and all those hidden api's yet they can't build a product using their own, engineers to do it. Pretty damn sad if you ask me and it shows alot of what microsoft is based upon. Do you see apple doing that? Nope, they build everything themselves and its usually better maybe that is their demise as well. Who knows.

The zune is the latest example. i am just waiting to see what trick microsoft has up its sleeve to destroy the ipod or apple altogether.

"Microsoft follows the lead of its competitors. they have never been able to beat out competition with a superior better product ever"

Huh...that's strange. I thought Windows has 85% market share...I also thought the 360 was getting MUCH better reviews then the PS3...I guess that's not beating out the competition...

"How many products has microsoft came out with recently as a copycat? live search"

So anybody that has a search engine is copying someone else...

"xbox"

Anybody releasing a console is copying the atari?

"ie7"

Anybody releasing an internet browser...

"windows defender, one care live, half the features of vista"

Take the top sentence and repeat four more times.

If apple ever releases a game console I expect you to be back here saying they're copying everybody else who already made a console.

"Huh...that's strange. I thought Windows has 85% market share.."

You do realize that most new PCs come with Windows pre-installed. It's not like someone has a choice in the matter. If the option was either Windows or MacOS X when purchasing a new computer, I'd think that it would greatly effect the market share.

The thing is though that'll never happen, as Apple is a hardware company (for copmuters anyway). If they allowed the MacOS to be ran on any computer (legally) they would loose there hardware sales.

"It's not like someone has a choice in the matter."

Really? I have a choice...I can order a PC with no OS and install Linux or get it preinstalled with Linux, and I have a choice of getting a PCish OSX or just a MAC...you don't have that choice? Is bill gates at your house with a gun to your head when you order your PC or something?

M$ made a stupid mistake by making the Zune so expensive. If they wanted to screw Apple they should have should set the price at $100. It's not like M$ can't afford it. I guarantee you that they would have been sold out by the end of the day. Even if the Zune was the worst player ever developed. The consumers love a good bargain and they would sold like hotcakes.

Expensive? Really? It's the same price as the 30 gigabyte 5.5G iPod. It's my understanding that MS is losing money at the currently selling price. Anyone that is so cheap or dislikes the players so much that MS has to sell Zune at $100 isn't likely to ever be a profitable customer.

Despite the shortcomings of Zune I think that Microsoft has a lot of potential. Many of the complaints being made about Zune were or are still true of earlier version of the iPod.

Don't like the Zune Marketplace? MS will no doubt release a new version of the software in the coming months fixing some of the issues that people have had with it. The vertical lock in arguments could be made about the iPod as well. While it is possible to get music from other digital music stores on the iPod I have found that most users never do.

I think if a price is on par with a product it should either do it just as well or better. The zune doesn't its buggy, has limited support for video, the wifi is worthless. No doubt microsoft will roll over on their customers in a few years when they give up, just like they did with the play for sure people.

The only way microsoft would gain wide market acceptance is to either have a lower price or do something better. They have either of those advantages. they don't even seem to be using the microsoft name to drive the product. I haven't seen any zune commercials so what was the point?

"Expensive? Really? It's the same price as the 30 gigabyte 5.5G iPod."

That's my point, it's the same price as the iPod. As a consumer which would you buy? A first generation player? Or a battle harden player like the Ipod? (or any other good mp3 player out there)

This must be a typo. They must have meant by June 2008, not June 2007.

That would be more realistic. I think they could sell that many Zunes, that pre-prototype appearing thing that looks like a second-rate modder made in his basement, to 1 million duped customers.

Wait until version 3 in a few years. This one is dead in the water. It's too bad because when Microsoft puts its best effort forward they make pretty good hardware. I wish they were still in the wifi business - never had a problem with their drivers.

I'm sure they're planning to count giveaways in the tally. Contests, promotions, etc. Pure (retail) sales volume won't likely meet expectation. At least in the U.S. unless something else changes to s*** the market away from iPod between now and then.

It has nothing to do with price, even if it lower by another $20, I don't think it will sell that many. More or less it still a big MP3 player just like the Ipod, or any other HDD base player out there. They should make the player use flash memory (2x8gb) and make the player slimmer. The player look sexy, however, it's just another bulky player.

Lower the price by ten or twenty bucks, or offer some other incentive, then people might have a reason to purchase this instead of an Apple device.

What's the point in buying something that costs the same as the competition? If it's a matter of corporate pride then hell, charge double if you think it's that special.

If MS lowers the price, likely so will Apple. It is a matter of making enough money.

I started realising today that Microsoft doesn't HAVE to beat Apple in this market for them to make money--if they make some profit from this, even if it is one-tenth that of Apple's profits from IPod sales, it is a profit noetheless.

So--maybe Microsoft just wanted a small peice of the pie, instead of reaching for the whole thing. MAybe--Microsoft is tired of being accussed of being an illegal monopoly, and they can help by having at least a few business ventures in areas where they purposely do not dominate the market. Who knows???

Which means they must be relying on the Marketplace to make that profit - the player is still costing them money each time they sell one. Until they start selling the Zune above cost, that strategy isn't going to win profits that will make the venture worthwhile.

everybody keeps talking bad about MSFT and they are just smart about the way they do things. Zune sooner or later will come up just like the ipod they said the same things when MSFT was going up with SONY PLAYSTATION and look at them now XBOX is all over PS3 a market where they ONCE RULED.