RSSZune dreams: Microsoft's refusal to say die
By Carmi Levy | Published September 17, 2009, 1:42 PM
A boxing match can be a fascinating thing to watch, especially when it's between deliberately mismatched fighters who probably have no business being in the ring at the same time. But since these things are more about business than fighting, anyway, audiences are often treated to cruel spectacles of an overwhelmingly powerful athlete beating an out-of-his-league opponent to a bloody pulp.
If the poor shlub doesn't collapse in a heap or put his gloves down and head for the corner, you can always count on the ref to step in and stop the carnage. But only after the members of the audience have been satisfied that they saw what they came to see.
The real world, sadly, doesn't work that way. There's no ref to stop the battle before it spins out of control. And quitting is usually the only viable option once a company realizes it's in over its head.
Fighting on
Microsoft hasn't gotten that memo. Three years after releasing its first Zune media player to what may be charitably described as lukewarm reviews, it's still hacking away at a platform that's barely managed to stay on consumers' radar. Or anyone else's. Its latest attempt, the Zune HD, is clearly the company's best release yet, with flashes of innovation that illustrate how deep the creative spirit continues to run at Microsoft. Too-sexy-for-my-shirt sleekness, OLED touchscreen, HD Radio and 720p hi-def external output via an available dock illustrate how much the game has changed since the early days when these things only played MP3s.
If only great design were enough to keep a decent media player going. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it isn't. While Apple's shipped 220 million iPods since 2001, Microsoft's barely topped 3 million in a shade less than three years. The first two hardware generations were credible me-too designs, but didn't offer anything unique enough to break iPod users out of their habit.
Beyond value-for-money or feature set considerations, however, consumers just don't covet Zunes like they covet iPods. Beyond Apple's consistent sense of industrial design that allows it to charge a premium for simplicity, its content and application ecosystem seals the deal. When you buy an iPod, you automatically become married -- for better or for worse -- to iTunes. Whether you love it or hate it, you've got to admit it at least means something to the iPod owner. The Zune? You get the Zune Marketplace that currently has seven free applications available for download. Microsoft's promising more, but its refusal to open the ecosystem to developers means it won't be challenging Apple's 75,000-title (and growing) App Store anytime soon.
Microsoft's Zune Pass, a $14.99 monthly subscription that gives Zuners unlimited (well, unlimited as long as they keep paying) access to six million songs in the Zune Marketplace library, is an creatively cost-effective way to keep buyers entertained. But like so many great ideas that fail to light the world on fire, it may be just a little too advanced for consumers who are still more comfortable buying and downloading songs online or ripping them from CDs.
We need competition
All of this means Microsoft's latest stab at Zune will likely end up where its previous attempts ended up: Nowhere. Which is unfortunate, because the media player market needs credible alternatives to keep the Apples of the world honest and to maintain the pace of innovation in this fast-evolving market. Apple is a better company because Microsoft insists on nipping at its media player heels. Without competition, leaders risk becoming complacent. And while Apple hasn't exhibited any outward signs of easing off the gas pedal, the continued presence of alternatives that can keep it from growing its near-74% media player market share can only be good for consumers.
Still, if Microsoft hopes to be more than an afterthought, it needs to abandon its careful, evolutionary strategy and swing for the fences. A more radical approach might include some of the following:
- Combine the Zune and Windows Mobile units into one. Forked development divides resources and increases time to market. Consolidating the two would drive Microsoft's agility in developing compelling mobile platforms and distributing them, quickly, on whatever platform makes the most sense. Apple's mobile platform covers both its iPod media players and its iPhone smartphones, so there's no reason why Microsoft can't follow suit.
- Extend the Xbox. The consolidated mobile entity outlined above should also find a way to incorporate core competencies from the Xbox unit. Mobility's future is games, after all, and where better to gain that expertise?
- Collapse all online stores into one. The fact that Microsoft has three such stores only serves to confuse consumers. The Zune Marketplace, Windows Marketplace and Xbox Live would be far livelier under one, consistently branded umbrella.
- Open the development ecosystem. Apple's strength is largely based on a vibrant application market that encourages third parties to add value to the basic platform. Microsoft needs to motivate the same kind of thinking for its Zune platform. Although every other mobile platform vendor is already diving into these waters, innovations like more advantageous pricing models, transparent approval processes, and targeted marketing assistance could differentiate a Microsoft-branded application marketplace.
- Buy Palm. The Zune HD may be pretty, but it'll never be as buzzworthy as Microsoft needs to bust out of niche status. For all its troubles, Palm still commands tremendous respect in the industry, is still staffed by some great engineering talent and can still generate headlines that transcend its now-miniscule market size. Such an acquisition would be just disruptive enough to shake Microsoft out of its mobile conservatism. At the same time, it would convince the rest of the world that the Redmond-based company means business, and isn't content to simply release another disjointed and derivative product.
I'm impressed that Microsoft has stuck it out this long. But I fear it'll keep getting bloodied if it keeps stepping into the ring without a secret, breakout weapon (steroids, perhaps?) that might give it a fighting chance of survival. It's been on the ropes for so long that nothing short of a completely new way of approaching the fight will improve its prospects.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
Totally agree with you. I thought 80%-90% of what you wrote already. But buying Palm totally makes sense. Given that they're not doing any of this, it really makes you wonder if MS have an overall strategy. It really makes you wonder if they really do want to compete. MS doesn't have a Steve Jobs unfortunately, Ballmer is a PR joke. Oh and they have got to drop the music subscription service. People don't want to rent music, they want to own it.
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|"I" don't want to rent music, "I" want to own it... You don't speak for everyone...There is a market out there but its not for you, we get it.
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|Hmmm. So you rent your clothes do you? Drive a rented car, live in a rented house? Rent your mobile/cell and rent your tv? Rent your cutlery and your plates? Need I carry on?
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|Yawn! H.264 Main and MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile support please.
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|This would be a great call to action if it wasn't already done. Your suggestions have already been implemented.
Zune 4.0 software already has the bits for Zune on WinMo.
XBOX Live store goes away this month I believe to be combined in to the Zune store, could be next month.
Some may recall MS offering up a game dev studio, I believe it was XNA, that was the seed work for Zune HD game developers.
As for buying Palm, who the hell would that be good for? Palm products suck and always have. Great looking stuff, but reliability is total trash.
I'm no MS fan or Apple fan, but I think it will be surprising what MS does in the next few months with Zune. Will it get them to 50% market share eating away at Apple? Probably not. But there is a HUGE install base with XBOX 360 now joining the Zune fray. Add in WinMo which is rolling out stop-gap 6.5 with WinMo 7 very very close.
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|Buying Palm would not do anything for Microsoft as they are too stupid to say Windows Mobile is total crap and should thrown out completely. Palm OS is light years ahead of Microsoft Windows Mobile but still light years behind OSX on the iPhone.
I agree, Zune Hybrid Digital Radio was dead on arrival.
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|palm, is no longer making phone for win mobo, just webos now. what makes you think that iphone's OS is so supprior to webos?
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|"it may be just a little too advanced for consumers who are still more comfortable buying and downloading songs online or ripping them from CDs." Umm...you can still do those things w/ Zune, You are NOT forced to get the Zune Pass.
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|lol no kidding, buy a DRM free song from Amazon, Apple even... throw it on Zune, done, convert your own DVD to mp4 container, etc
i'd buy from Amazon because my guess is once you get iTunes installed, its embedded into your PC unable to be fully removed
and i think Zune Pass gives you 10 free tunes a month you can share with anybody? well they say you can do what you want with them lol ;)
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|ok good, i'm glad i wasn't the only one noticing this. you can buy individual songs/albums...
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|One thing about Microsoft is they have the money, the time and the motivation to keep on going. They also have nothing to lose. Unlike creative and all the other companies in this arena Microsoft has their cash cows to live off of and fund this project.
If anything, I think its great they are here, they are providing the competition needed to keep the leader innovating. I have a feeling we will be seeing ipods, iphones and touches with oled screens. You have to admit that is one thing that is just beautiful about the new Zune HD. I don't see the value however in music subscriptions, even with 10 songs free. I really don't buy that much music. That is a great way to get a constant revenue stream though, 15 dollars a month in a year adds up to a lot. Really how much music can you listen to that you don't already have? And who has enough time to figure it out? Pandora is free, and that is a great way to introduce you to some new music without the money, time and hassle. Apple has hte market in lock down, just like windows does the desktop pc os. Just the way it is.
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|Money is a key. Microsoft was always good about long term R&D, and sometimes it worked for them, and sometimes the market s***s made the R&D irrelevant.
The trick is, they often come up with something people don't see coming, and regain control of an industry.
The last 10 years they invested heavily in development, compiler, and security development technologies. This doesn't lead directly to any products, but as far as security and code quailty, it can be seen in Windows7, which is solid code and has the potential to be one of if not the most secure consumer OS in history.
.NET is another area that was always 'foggy' as it was in R&D since the early 90s, but now is making sense and creating a new development platform and even an API structure for Vista/Win7/Silverlight/Azure.
Apple tends to do short term R&D investment, and often their products are me too, but better goals. Like the iPod wasn't the first MP3, but it was a little better than some of the ones that came before it.
This makes Apple more on 'trend', even if a bit dishonest when they pretend they invented the technology, instead of admitting they only refined it.
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|Do you really understand Apple's R&D strategy? Calling it "short term" is a bit near sighted or simply MS fanyboyism as they develop amazing software APIs that .Net should be jealous of (Yes I do both .Net development, Cocoa and now iPhone OS work. And Cocoa provides a means of writing less code to do the same work when compared to .Net. Less code means less testing), do continuous development on GCC that benefits not only them but the Open Source community as a whole as well as long term language development.
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|No you apply it to profits. While Windows does have 10X the market share of OS X, OS X (and what it offers) is very profitable to Apple. The Zune, with almost 1/100 the market share of the iPod line, has been a 4 year (development time included) money sink with no profits in the past or foreseeable future.
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|The Zune HD has potential. If my 5.5G iPod ever dies i would consider the ZuneHD along with the IPod Touch as options for a multi-use pocket device.
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|He is one blogger high on Macdust...ever since Zune 2 came on the scene...for me it's goodbye iPods.. Zunes rock with hardware quality, music quality and music access (14.99 unlimited with 10 for keeps) and who ever wanted to look cool now has ZuneHD...yeah...Apple might have sold 210m of those only because Zune wasn't there on the scene...and I am not even talking about Zune software...
anyone with a little common sense will not go anywhere near those itty,bitty, highly breakable, mediocre sounding tampods or ipods...
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|Wow, just another article from a clueless writer. It gets me that they continue to let this guy write for them.
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|Now apply this same 220 million vs 3 million = failure philosophy to Mac OS X and Windows.
Market-share is more important than features and functionality in making a device worthwhile?
Funny how this kind of logic works in one of your articles while flying in the face of most of your other articles.
So, what weight do we place on a person's viewpoint when the very logic behind them changes by the minute depending on the manufacturer/product in question?
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|I was just about to say the same...
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|Yeah, he will probably post another article back tracking like it he did on the Windows 7 "Don't upgrade" article.
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|I totally agree. In addition, sheep buy iPods, sophisticates buy Zunes.
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|Sophisticates buy something that can run RockBox... which does not include the Zune.
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|Sophisticates buy whatever the hell matches what they need best regardless of articles like this.
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|Carmi is just jealous Canada gets no Zunes ;)
regardless, iPod touch may have more Apps but Zune is full of innovation, i'm sure for those new owners out there its exciting to have in the Palm of their hand
to me the Zune HD is just an extremely easy to use device, and the UI flows like water, its impressive
and it depends what you want to do with your PMP, i could careless about thousands of useless apps, give me a bunch of useful ones, free at that and i'll be happy, that and some quality games
anyhow, Carmi makes the mistake of thinking the Zune and iPod are in some kind of battle, they aren't
i'd of bought one already if i had support in Canada ;P
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|Carmi is welcome to his opinion. I do agree that the Zune HD isn't going to break Apples hold on the market, but I do think it's the first one that has the potential to do some real damage in Microsofts favor.
Before I was only a Zune fan for the excellent software. Now it's got the hardware to match. We'll see if the app selection will improve enough to matter or not.
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