Microsoft croons that the Zune is here at last

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 14 November 2006 19:22

Your IT - Entertainment

Well, Monday the 13th of November came and went without Apple launching their wireless, widescreen iPod. The new target date for that now has to be Macworld in January 2007, giving Microsoft a scant six weeks to make an impact with the Zune before the global news is likely to be Apple Apple Apple.

Zune is here. It’s arrived! You can buy one, and there appear to be no Xbox 360 or PS3 style shortages. The funny thing is that there may well be shortages, but with only journalists and some analyst firms seemingly truly excited about it, no-one is rushing the stores to buy one to find out that, like the PS3, they’re all sold out.

That’s just blatant speculation of course, and Microsoft has likely learned some good lessons from the Xbox 360. If you want to launch a product, make damn sure you do it at the height of the holiday season, and make sure you have plenty of them available. Unless you’re trying to create a sense of exclusivity, of course.

But with Apple holding the winning hand in the mp3 player race, with their widescreen wireless iPod ace still up their sleeve, Microsoft has to do something special to convince consumers to splash their cash on the Zune.

Early reports from Zune owners have already complained  of installation errors, while others have reported that the sharing feature which allows users to send a file to a fellow Zune owning friend, conked out after only two replays of a song, instead of the reported three.

Microsoft’s reponse was said to be that this would be something they’d fix through a firmware update. But seeing as this is supposed to be one of the killer features, wasn’t it extensively tested before launch?

Or do we now live in a world where you can just get something to ‘good enough’ stage, and if there are still bugs, you can just issue a patch to fix it later? Whatever happened to quality control, and pride in one’s work?

And as for that wireless feature... Are Zune users loons who use the wireless feature once in a blue moon as no-one else has a Zune to share with?

There’s no question that Microsoft hopes that there will be a monsoon of Zune purchases, to deliver a boon to Microsoft's profit margin.

But if anyone really believes that, they're probably a goon who's spent to much time in the sun at noon and has gone slightly out of tune. I think you’d be better off deciphering the runes to see if Microsoft has any hope of selling Zunes.

But at least they’re trying. Me? I’m waiting to see what they do with Zune 2. And then where they’ll be with the Zune 3, by which time they will hopefully have gotten it right, if Apple hasn’t by then wiped every competitor off the face of the Earth.