Zune is no PC

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 29 November 2006 04:25

Opinion and Analysis

By the way, did anyone at Microsoft consider the fact that a good percentage of music player users like to take advantage of their devices' storage capabilities to store and transport data files from their computers? One would think that a business software company like Microsoft might consider that fact - every other music player manufacturer has.

Then of course there is the Zune's coup de grace - WiFi. Needless to say, it has gone over like a lead balloon. And why wouldn't it? It is yet another exercise in restrictions on what users can do. Anyway, the imminent arrival of mobile phone music players with decent storage and the ability to transfer music without such restrictions - maybe even an iPhone soon - will make Zune squirting seem a bit wet.

No one expected the Zune to be as stylish or cool as the iPod. After all, Apple excels in the design and image department. In fact, the utilitarian looks and feel of the player are exactly what many of us expected. However, many of us expected that Microsoft might attempt to overcome any design shortcomings by making the player more open and less restrictive to combat the closed iPod - iTunes system. Exactly the opposite has been the case. It's almost as if the Zune design team has focussed on making sure they implemented a list of things they wanted to restrict users from doing.

A recent report quotes a Microsoft executive as saying that Zune's position in the market is exactly where the company wants it to be. With Zune sitting at around the number 100 mark on Amazon's most popular consumer electronics devices, that's a little hard to believe.

Zune is no PC that's for sure.