Zune: it's not just the player stupid

Stan Beer
Monday, 13 November 2006 11:28

Opinion and Analysis

When I heard that the time and number of plays limit also applied to non-copyright music as well, I figured Microsoft just hasn't been able to get its system management software right yet. That must be the case, because really no company of Microsoft's sophistication could be that stupid deliberately.

As technology reviewers have pointed out, the Zune is bereft of features that many have come to take for granted with iPod such as games, clocks, calendar, and address book, among other things. No doubt these features, being software, will be added in updates.

However, the non-feature of Zune that floored me, is the news that Zune cannot be used as an external hard drive. It is such an obvious deficiency, that one wonders if Microsoft's hardware division just had a bad day when they left that fundamental feature out or there is some technical issue yet to be resolved. If it's the latter, perhaps Microsoft should just grab any old music player from another manufacturer and see how they do it.

All that aside, as I said from the beginning of this article, this is not just about the music player. Microsoft has painted itself into a corner with a music player that is restricted to Zune Marketplace, a music store that has a much smaller range of music than iTunes and no access as yet to the other goodies like videos, TV shows and so on.

In addition, Zune is not even compatible with Windows Media Player, let alone Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM. Thus, Zune owners will not be able to use music that they paid for and downloaded from Microsoft's previous music alliances.

Perhaps Microsoft should take note that even the fabulously successful iTunes store doesn't make all that much money for Apple. It's the iTunes-iPod connection that works the magic.

Why Microsoft chose to butcher its own children and start afresh is beyond comprehension. With the Zune player, Microsoft could have had a ready made download network of PlaysForSure music stores, its own mature media player, all while it was building up its own music store and forging closer connections between the store and the player.

This Christmas, it should be interesting to see how many Zunes are sold compared to iPods. The proof will be in the pudding.