RSSMicrosoft Drops Zune Price, Talks Zune Phone
By Ed Oswald | Published September 5, 2007, 11:44 AM
Microsoft has decided to drop the price of the Zune in an effort to spur sales, while indicating it hadn't completely ruled out a Zune phone.
Effective Wednesday, the price of Microsoft's competitor to the iPod is now $199 USD. The company said the price cut was something it had been planning to do for months, and was part of the normal product cycle.
"We just got some research back and customer satisfaction with the 30GB device is really high (around 94%) and we expect even more consumers will now want to discover the Zune experience at the new lower price," Zune team member Caesar Menendez wrote in the Zune Insider Web log.
In the same token, sales of the player have been consistent but not extraordinary. Through June, the company had sold a little over 1 million Zunes since launch, meeting its goal, but falling well below the 25 million iPods sold during the same period.
While Zune is still very much being dwarfed by Apple and iPod, many Microsoft supporters still point out that the company has been able to take a 3.6 percent share of the market as of June, and controls 12.9 percent of the HDD-based player market. But most MP3 player manufacturers today no longer produce HDD-based devices, thus Zune's success there may be inflated.
This confidence may be playing into Microsoft's apparent reconsideration of the Zune phone. Earlier in the year, CEO Steve Ballmer said that combining the player and a phone was not something the company would likely do.
However, in comments at a conference hosted by Citigroup, Microsoft officials were saying it would "not be unreasonable" to see a Zune phone in the near future. Ballmer's previous comments seemed to indicate that Microsoft was planning to add music and gaming functionality to Windows Mobile instead.
Again, Microsoft is sending a convoluted message. At the conference, officials seemed not too keen on moving away from the business-centric focus of Windows Mobile, saying that was still the target demographic for those products.
I've got a $40 mp3/CD player. Burn mp3's on CD and play it all day long. Sure it's heavy and looks old but if it falls overboard I won't have to cuss and cry.
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|Who cares. Do we really need another phone? How about spending that money to fix something else, like shipping WS2008 on time.
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|Different departments, different budgets.
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|Microsoft seem like they can't leave any market involving their immediate competitors alone if they think someone might dominate a niche market.
I'll bet if Apple brought out a blooming frying pan, Microsoft would be thinking - "Hey, why don't *we* have a frying pan division?" ;-)
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|Apple vs. MS $hit aside, the Ipod "classic" is the smart choice currently, simply from a price and value perspective. There's nothing at all wrong with the zune, despite all the appleites claiming how 'horrible' it is. The Zune is doing well in a market dominated by competitors, and especially by the Ipod...and is infact doing better than the
Ipod in it's initial release. Personally, I decided not to go with a zune simply because it's not playforsure compat., and I like subscription services that allow me to download unlimited music per month. I'll never go with Apple as long as the device is locked to dealing with itunes UNLESS Apple releases a subscription plan.
I wish that you guys could for once be objective and stop with the 'Apple vs. MS' ridiculousness. They're both great players.
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|Finally someone that likes the subscription model as much as I do!
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|"This confidence may be playing into Microsoft's apparent reconsideration of the Zune phone. Earlier in the year, CEO Steve Ballmer said that combining the player and a phone was not something the company would likely do."
Well, then Steve doesn't keep close tabs, since they put a damn team together to do it...
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|Yeah, except people are buying them, Woot! sold out of them in 24 hrs.
There's nothing wrong with the Zune, some of the ideas could have been better implemented but as a music, video, picture viewer it functions fine and IMO has a better interface then Ipod.
This price drop will allow it to sell more but will it topple Apple, not likely. If Zune had the backing and advertisement that Ipod had I think more people would give it a chance, the only people I ever hear complain about Zune is Apple loyalists and people who never have even tried it, once again because it is labeled a MS product, it is automatically dead.
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|zune's great...I wished MS would do something a bit more PC with it...not politically correct, but personal computer...hehe
If they market the zune like Windows...if some of you hate MS products, more power to you. But I would like to have my zune...use it as a gps as well...
I mean, dang...got the screen, it's in my car, let me load up streets and trips!!! Man that would rule...but I'm sure just me :D
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|Isn't there a new version coming out that is supposed to fix several of the issues people have with it? I could have sworn I read that somewhere...
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|"...labeled a MS product, it is automatically dead" As far as i know, M$ does not put its name on the Zune anywhere.
The Zune is not selling because it is horrible. The iPod and other MP3 players are _way_ better.
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|How are they better explain? What makes the Zune so terrible.
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|It is ugly. The software is garbage. the interface is horrible. It is a cheap immitation of the iPod and iTunes combo.
Turd brown anyone?
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|You don't even own a Zune. But I don't either. I have a Cowon iAudio X5 60gb. I'm looking that getting the Cowon D2 though, it looks nice. Touch screen, expandable with SD[HC] (which means it'll be compatible with the 32gb ones when they come out), mass storage so you don't need any software (it just shows up as a drive on My Computer). Looks kinda nice. Here's a review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byd_zguHLEg
I'm sure you wanted to know:)
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|Who uses a Zune?
Not a single person in our entire company (of over 3000 employees) has one. Give it up, the Zune died even before it launched...LOL
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|And the 3,000+ employees at your company are the only people on the planet? *boggles the imagination*
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|So you know all 3000 people that work at your company? Wow, you're super popular!
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|I still have never seen a single one in the wild. Not that i am surprised...the Zune is horrible.
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|If microsoft were to make a zune phone it would beat the iphone since they would not repeat the mistakes that the iphone has made and would have a better OS with its, already established" windows smart phone OS.
I really love the skepticism and, take any chance to bring down microsoft, tone i read from the author of this piece. It's news like this that only secures a microsoft victory, no matter how hard magazines and movies try to sneakily push apple logos and "ipod" references on people.
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|"If microsoft were to make a zune phone it would beat the iphone..."
looking at the Zune to iPod history, i would say the Zune Phone would fail miseraably. But...the only way we would know for sure is if they release one.
LOL. Sure would hate to be a Windows Mobile vendor right now....you are about to get abandoned.
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|Just look at the iPod and see how long it takes before it finally took off. With limited history of Zune, it's doing job.
Now, stop trolling and go get laid.
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|Speaking of trolls it seems like there are a lot of people paid to post by Microsoft on here lately, any comment BetaNews?
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|Speaking of trolls, so because someone disagrees with the almightly Apple and OSS but prefers a Zune they are paid for by MS?
I think you need to reread your post...
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|I don't think that's much of a comparison. Not many people bought mp3 players of any type in October 2001, compared to September 2007!
MP3 players are so commonplace now, and yet the Zune isn't selling particularly well. It still isn't even on sale in Europe yet. That's not the way to sell products, keeping them in a limited marketplace...
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|I'd suspect they aren't clever enough to ask Microsoft to do their marketing for them. They probably just do it to try and get a rise of of people.
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