RSSMicrosoft Planning Own Music Player?
By Ed Oswald | Published January 27, 2006, 11:45 AM
Microsoft confirmed on Thursday that it was looking into building its own competitor to Apple's iPod, which controls nearly 75 percent of the MP3 player market. For years, the company took a hands-off approach, allowing its partners to build the players and only offering the software.
That strategy backfired, however, causing a disjointed experience between the hardware and the Windows Media software. Synchronization was unreliable, and some players had problems with Microsoft's PlaysForSure technology. In contrast, issues between the iPod and iTunes are practically non-existent.
Reports that Microsoft was considering its own player first surfaced in BusinessWeek on Thursday. Sources inside the company told the publication a team had been assembled to research the feasibility of building the device.
While Microsoft has dismissed the report as speculation, a spokesperson for the company did confirm that as part of a restructuring program started last year Microsoft was considering its own player. However, an official decision to go ahead has not been made.
BusinessWeek suggested that any Microsoft-branded player would be more than just a music player. In an interview, Xbox head Peter More suggested the company would also need to leverage its successes in video gaming. Calling the brand an "opportunity," Moore suggested such a device might carry the Xbox logo.
Michael Gartenberg, vice president at Jupiter Research, calls such a device a big challenge. "People buy the PSP for games first and everything else second. iPods are for media first," he said. "A lot depends on what Microsoft sees as the target for the device and how important they view pocketability in terms of form factor."
Such a change would mean company figurehead Bill Gates would have to backtrack somewhat on earlier comments. Gates has argued consistently that consumers prefer choice in device to the singularity of the iPod. However, sales have shown that his argument has been mostly wrong thus far.
Both analysts and industry insiders agree that Microsoft's position seems to be doing more harm than good to the company's overall position in the digital music market, and have pushed for Redmond to start producing its own device.
"Microsoft must take control of this situation if they're ever to come close to competing head-to-head with the iPod," technology blogger Chris Pirillo wrote recently. "I believe it's imperative that Microsoft set the quality bar for others who develop for Windows platforms."
My thoughts (and I have more insight than most "consumers" here)
- MS already has two OSs for portable devices: Windows Mobile 5 and Media Center Portable
- Windows Mobile is aimed at biz class users and you will see lots of people dumping their blackberries this year. Windows Mobile 5 plus Exchange 2003 SP2 offers the same syncing of messages as Blackberry. Even Palm is making the move from the Palm OS to Windows (is there a pig flying somewhere?)
- Windows Media Center Portable is currently undergoing MAJOR upgrades. The current rev of the software used in their home version (Media Center 2005) and is being synched up with the new Vista release coming this year.
- Windows Media Center will get a LOT of attention this year, and frankly, this is where MS's strength is. Media Center is an amazing concept and is perhaps the easiest OS ever to use. (Apple has noticed and created their own neutered version called FrontRow. Apple's problem is that they don't have near the hardware support MS does, nor will they anytime soon due to their closed architecture)
- Consider the time and investment MS is putting into an already functioning Media Center, the release of Vista in less than one year, you will see a new line of portable devices with Media Center Vista Portalable (or whatever you want to call it).
- These devices will range from hand-held music players, larger DVD/video players, to full functioning PSP-style devices.
- I believe MS WILL CREATE their own line of media players. They create other hardware devices, so why not something that is more lucrative than a wireless mouse.
- The possibilities are endless here. Consider how you can (today) stream media content from your Media Center through your Xbox. If you can that, what will you be able to do with the new Vista versions of media center and media center portable.
Now on to iTunes vs. WMP... Neither one is great, but both work. I use both and I get frustrated with both. I tend to gravitate to WMP10 though. I have seen a beta version of WMP11 and it is impressive. Perhaps the most impressive aspect is the speed of the library. MS has gone to great pains to speed up accessing LARGE libraries.
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|My only concern is that MS will make the player unusable with all of the proprietry rubbish they will feel obliged to include and all of the DRM they will enforce.
I have no problems with MP10 and my Zen sleek.
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|Microsoft should make a true portable media center with sound,photo and video capture capabilities not just playback doesn't have to be great quality but decent to keep price down.
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|Yay, an MP3 player that crashes twice a day -_-
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|thats funny, not.
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|WMP 10 indeed sux.. and itunes isn't far away unfortunately. it's a bloated resource hog. it's way better to use a winamp plugin for the ipod; much faster and hassle-free. About iPod.. i have nothing against; it's a good mp3 player.. prolly the best on the market and i think it's affordable too. I really don't think Microsoft can do anything about apple's market share, whatever they come up with. A cheap & reliable mp3 player from microsoft; i would like to see that happen!
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|I view the iPod as trendy, elitist, overpriced junk - in other words a typical Apple product.
I don't view MS as the anti-christ - but I can ciritcize them when they pull boners.
I do believe that they are the most high profile company to compete with the Apple fodder - and that when they do, they'll deliver a decent product as long as they don't let the silly-assed DRM trend get in their way too much.
There are already more than viable alternatives form Samsung and Creative Labs; an offering from MS will simply sweeten the mix for those of us who don't spend money on hype.
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|Get over it already...become a fanboy.
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|Now I know there are a lot of iPod hatters out there, and a whole lot more MS hatters. But I believe Microsoft is the only company out there that can compete with Apple's iPod.
I have a 3G iPod myself, and love it. It's simple and it works well, especially with iTunes. A lot of other MP3 player companies try to make the so called "iPod Killers" but unfortunetly all they do is copy the iPod and place there name on it.
MS i believe will release its own MP3/Video player, but with a few small changes from the iPod like:
- More music media support not just MP3 or ACC
- More video medi support
- Hopefully an easy to use menu like iPods have
- Better battery life
- I also wouldnt mind seeing something that can compare to iTunes in both its simplicity and in its ability to upload songs to iPod.
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|Creative is already competing... and beating... the Ipod
Somewhere above, someone called the Ipod "overpriced junk" for the simple reason that 20gb Ipod is the same price as 30 to 40GB Zen touch.
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|LMAO! Beating??? Even for a fanboy that's a stretch!
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|this is a great example of how wrong you B
creative quarterly revenues rose 4.2 percent to 390.8 million, posted net profit of 1.3 million.. ended dec 31
apple quarterly revenues rose 65 percent to 5.75 billion, posted a net profit of 565 million.. ended dec 31
Apple sold 14 million ipods last quarter.
You may hate apple but you need to check the score before you get drunk and throw a party
the new ZEN vision:M (music, video, photos) 30 GB $329.00
http://us.creative.com/p...technicalSpecifications
the iPod video (music, video, photos) 30 GB $299.00
http://store.apple.com/1...m=iPod&mco=CC4D3CBB
plus the ipod is almost half as thick and weighs 20 % less...
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|Ha ha, no comment on the fact that in every aspect it exceeds the funtionality of the ipod except for size, and it comes with an AC adaptor so you can actually charge it, WOW!
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|Sorry...did we forget to tell you?
JacenSolo posts from about 3.6 months into the future.
Ya live and ya learn, eh?
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|Well the fact of the matter is that most people look at the two and say, "Ok, they both play music with as much functionality as on my cd player, but one is twice as thick."
Seriously, if you can find the music in less than a few steps, all of which are nearly identical but just operating on different hierarchial levels, and you can start/stop/ff/rw the tracks, then what else do you NEED. You must consider that these extra features DO get in the way of the more essential ones, and that is why I think the iPod won. It wasn't a battle of features with the outcome determined by geeks, like the OS war is, it came down to which device was more useable, and consequentially desirable, by non-techy people.
Another MAJOR part of the picture is obviously the software. This really is half the picture, at least. I consider myself very good with computers, I do about everything but code my own software or use different OS's (but I do know the trends in these areas, and I found it a lot easier to get music from cd or p2p onto an ipod than with WMP and some other device. The general steps are:
1. Insert CD, rip - both programs do this well, but iTunes's configuration is more straightforward.
2. Find the damn songs that have been imported. Winner-iTunes. The search box is very obviously placed and labeled, the additional browser panes are supperior to the tree-view used in WMP 10, making a playlist in iTunes is easier (just highlight and drag to the left).
3. Add to the device. Winner, iTunes, but only for certain situations, otherwise it's a tie. For manually adding songs, iTunes is definitly more straightforward, drag and drop. For automatically syncing the whole library it's more of a tie.
Additional areas where iTunes excels are:
1. Display of present state of the program. iTunes lists everything the program is doing in the same place, whether it's playing a song, rippind music, burning a cd, or syncing an ipod. WMP has no such area, there's no single place you can look at to see what's going on. Indications might be in an icon's state (which you would never detect if you don't know whatit looked like before), in some empty space somewhere, in a sudden change of the view, in a popup (iTunes uses these too, but backs it up with the 'lcd' display), or even external from the program.
2. Ease of finding files. I said this already but it's extremely important.
3. Carefully selected features which encapsulate as much functionality as possible. One feature can do many things. Non-essential functionality is absent, but that is only a drawback for a few people, and their inclusion would be an annoyance to everyone else. This is Apple's philosophy, and it explains both why consumers like Apple yet big companies with highly heterogenous needs prefer non-Apple solutions. Apple is very good for certain things, and absolutly horrible at others, and music is not one of these areas.
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|If they were to release a decently priced portable media player with MPEG4 [read: divx/xvid], mp3, wma, wmv, etc. support, a nice screen (PSP style), good battery life and a nice menu (iPod/Media Center style) and I would buy it. I love my iPod because it just works. I liked my iRiver H120 as well but I prefer my iPod as it is a better user experience (for me anyway). If Microsoft can do it right they could own the portable video players (the iPod Video isn't that great IMHO). They might need to take a hit financially to do it though (lose money on the hardware, make it up on the content similar to their Xbox strategy). Still they have a lot of money so thay can do it, all they really need to do is take the remove the UMD drive from the PSP, stick in a 100GB micro drive and a bigger battery and adjust some of the buttons and we are good to go :D
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|Your statemetn that the iPod just works is not correct. If I plug an iPod into my computer I need to install software to get it to work. But a playforsure product I can just plug it in open My computer or WMP and it just works no software needed to be istalled.
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|OH WAAH!
Installing software is NOT the end of the world.
You can't even convert MP3 to WMA without installing software anyway! (Namely MS Plus or the full version of the software that MS Plus provides.)
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|If I have to install piss-poor software to use a piece of hardware that should be plug and play the way most others in the genre are wuth UMS then that garbage immediately gets tossed of my list.
Transcoding lossy formats?
A loser's game.
End of line.
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|Sooooooo bitter. Your life would be so much better as a Steve Jobs fanboy. Gaze into the shiny reflective case, listen to the soothing click-wheel. Become one with the iPod.
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|Mmmm....DBPowerAMP.
'Nuff said.
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|Spend more money then needed, get stuck with the apple store, live with no REAL choice. No Thanks
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|Agree you can't convert a file, BUT I don't need to install any software to transfer songs to my MP3 player, have it be Dell or Creative
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|Well, if anyone can give Apple competion its microsoft. It might be too late in the game, however I think they will do a Xbox strategy and put out a sick player while at the same time taking a loss on the sale price so they can get it out there to the masses. Basically making the money back through their own music store.
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|I see this as Microsoft saying, "Alright, we gave you guys all a chance and you blew it. Now it's our turn." And I think this is a significant move by Microsoft, if in fact it happens.
I still say that the #1 biggest reason that the iPod is where it is today is marketing. There is iPod advertising everywhere! In subway terminals, tv, magazines, everywhere! There's by far more advertising for the iPod than every other MP3 player combined! Creative supposedly is going to go on a big advertising campaign, and I think that's huge. If Microsoft can make a good product and market it well/correctly, I think it could be a winner. We all know it would integrate with WMP well, and that's probably another significant thing.
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|Exactly, Creative had digital music players before Apple, they were better and had more storage space. Yet they didn't do enough advertising, so everyone's going to think it's a rip-off.
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|iPod has won the mind-share of the middle school, high school, and college kids. I don't care what MS come out with, if a kid wants an iPod because it's the coolest player around, they get an iPod. The iPod has become a cultural icon. You cannot beat the buzz, desire, or peer envy with good technology. Once you have the buzz, it's takes a monumental screw up to lose it.
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|I agree with wincement: this seems oddly "late" in the game. Unless they make it better than iPod and MUCH cheaper, it'll be tough to get a good revenue stream from it. I disagree with the article statement on PSP buying habits. I have one, I bought it for the WiFi and MP3 playing features. The games are a bit pricey, as are the movies.
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|The 3G Dell DJ looks pretty impressive...
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|What 3G DJ? Was that sarcasm, or do you know something I don't? It does seem they are no longer selling the 2G DJ, only the Ditty now. Maybe a sign...
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|Dell?
I wouldn't buy anything they sell with YOUR money.
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|You don't really like anyone, do you?
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|That would make him your nemesis, wouldn't it?
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|Apple and Microsoft have a patent portfolio sharing agreement. They can't sue each other for patent infringement, ever. They can lock others out of the market entirely, effectively a duopoly, but there will be no further lawsuits between these two companies.
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|Hey, if it's even remotely as sexy as an ipod... and cheaper, I'll buy one.
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|Geez. You guys need to do more research and less blog reading.
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|Are you kidding? Blog reading *is* the new reasearch. :P
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|??? MS doesn't own any patents involving the iPod interface. What urban legend site did you read that on? MS isn't going to sue Apple, nor vice versa. They enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship from a business perspective. If you don't believe (or see) that, you need to do more thorough research dude.
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|I heard about the patent also. About 2-3 months ago it was on google news
search for 'microsoft ipod interface patent' on google web search
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|that was creative not ms.
http://www.vnunet.com/vn...e-challenges-apple-ipod
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|Wasn't it previously reported that Microsoft has the patent rights to the Ipod interface? If so, it does make sense to come out with their own line. It will give them credibility to sue Apple for patent infringement.
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|I thought that was Creative.
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|correct.
http://www.vnunet.com/vn...e-challenges-apple-ipod
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|Smart. Probably too late, but smart. This is a good move for Microsoft assuming they make a decent player.
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|Now..if they can make the player, *and* provide compatibility so other manufacturers can make similar devices I will be impressed.
I dislike iPods. I suspect I would dislike an iPod clone just as much.
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|The biggest hurdle, is that the Windows Media Player is still an awful piece of software to use. It doesn't matter what kind of Player they create, the software still isn't that good.
And some of you guys have hit it on the nail. Microsft needs too create some sort of XBox handheld that will play music as well.
Just a plain jane MP3/WMV player just won't cut it. It's not iPod that they need to compete with, it's Creative and Samsung as well.
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|I agree. WMP 10 is a product I really dislike, and the one that will come out with Vista... I wasn't vey impressed by it either from the keynote at CES, I mean, the ideas are neat for it... but I guess time will only tell what happens but for now I really like my 5G iPod.
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|where would MS be without apple... copy the os, copy iLife (no chance, but they will try), copy the ipod, the music store,...
lets see how long it takes before MS tries to copy Final Cut Pro, Motion, Logic, DVD Studio Pro, Shake, and the all powerfull qMaster render farm.
Apple works HiDef and Digital cinema post and soon they will bring 1080p to iTunes music/movie store.
... could anyone guess that Pixar would release 3D apps for OSX only...
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|they will only copy and claim they invented
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|I believe some of you don't understand what Microsoft is trying to do. They are not only going to compete with the iPod, but also the PSP. Now imagine a player that used the blade interface that's on the Xbox 360. You could connect the player straight to your Xbox 360, and upload music, movies, and extra content straight from there.
Halo portable?
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