Microsoft confirms plans for iPod rival
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Microsoft Corp. confirmed Friday it's working on music and entertainment products that are expected to compete with Apple Computer Inc.'s wildly popular iPod and iTunes music service.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on  Tuesday that it is "not unreasonable" for the company to  introduce a mobile phone combined with features of its Zune  digital music player to compete with Apple Inc.'s   iPhone.
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Microsoft Corp.'s answer to Apple's iPod will be built by Toshiba Corp., the software company confirmed Friday.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. has predicted it will sell 1 million Zune devices in its first six months, a figure that would be more than Zune's chief rival iPod sold in its first 14 months but a relatively slow start for the much-hyped MP3 device. SinceÂ its retail debut on Nov. 15, customer interest in Zune has been lackluster, analysts report, and the company's projections for sales of the device are conservative. By contrast, Apple Computer Inc. will likely sell about 25 million iPods over the same period according to financial analysts, though the company only sold 600,000 iPods in the first 14 months of availability. Mike McGuire, a Gartner Inc. research vice president, said he was surprised Microsoft is expecting to sell so few Zunes in the first six months, given that the market for iPod and MP3 devices is thriving. On the other hand, "it's a decent objective," he said. "I was expecting a more aggressive goal," McGuire said. "But even though it's conservative it's going to be tough [to make that goal]." McGuire cited the fact that Microsoft is only offering one version of the device and the rapid nature of the media-player market, which is moving forward with new, cutting-edge devices all the time, as challenges for the vendor. Microsoft's achievements with Zune will depend on how successfully it builds a community around the product with its Zune Marketplace software and online store, as well as how quickly it can upgrade the initial Zune device with new features and models, McGuire said. Zune is in a distinctly different position than iPod was at its launch. IPods could only be used with Apple's Macintosh computers, which have a significantly smaller market share of the desktop computer market than Windows machines, the platform for Zune. In October 2001, when iPod was released, Apple PC market share was about 2.4 percent. And iPod was an unproved device, one of the first of its kind in a market that Apple ostensibly created, whereas Zune has the benefit of entering a thriving market. Of course, iTunes software for iPods now runs on millions of Windows PCs in addition to Macs. To date, Apple has sold more than 67 million iPods, and should sell about 82 million by the end of the year. The company has several versions of the iPod -- the video iPod, the iPod nano and the iPod shuffle -- in various sizes and colors. There are also an extensive array of accessories available for iPods. Microsoft's 30G-byte Zune costs US$249.99, the same price as the video iPod, but it's different from the iPod in two key ways. Zune includes an FM tuner and wireless capability that allows users to share songs between devices.
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Microsoft Corp. has vowed to put considerable money and effort behind its bid to dethrone Apple Computer Inc.'s market-leading iPod, but it won't be using price as a weapon.
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After years of trying to make it easier for peripheral devices to work smoothly with computers, Microsoft is building in some difficulty. The upcoming Longhorn OS should allow companies to keep gizmos like iPod from stealing data.
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To throw a spanner in the works of Microsoft&#39;s arrival on the digital music scene, Apple wanted to sign a strategic agreement with Sony, Japanese daily Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun has revealed, quoting sources from Sony.
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TechWeb - Apple enthusiasts say that in January Apple will unveil a sub-&#36;500 Mac designed to entice Windows users who own iPods to make the computer switch.
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Software giant Microsoft unveils a music-downloading service to rival Apple's iTunes and other providers.
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Software giant Microsoft said that its Zune MP3 player challenge to Apple Computer's internationally popular iPod will hit US stores on November 14.
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Microsoft Corp.  may have  a chance to take market share from the iPod as a Reuters survey  showed 35 percent of those interested in its Zune device would  be replacing an existing digital music player.
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Microsoft today unveiled details of its highly anticipated Zune media player in the latest bid to rival Apple's iTunes/iPod combination.
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U.S. software giant Microsoft  is  aiming to get its audio and video software into mobile phones  before it is beaten to the 650-million-handsets-a-year market  by rivals like Apple.
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O said on   Thursday its new Zune music player will be sold at a price   matching Apple Computer Inc.'s AAPL.O market-leading iPod   and, as a result, lose money this holiday season.
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REDMOND, Washington  - Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O   unveiled on Thursday its new "Zune" portable media player,   hoping its ability to share music wirelessly can win over   consumers despite its late entry five years after Apple's   market-dominating iPod.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on Tuesday  it sees plenty of room for growth in the digital music player  market as the company tries to dislodge Apple Computer Inc.'s   dominant iPod with a device of its own.
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Jingle bells Microsoft has confirmed it will detail its second-generation Zune media players in time for the Christmas sales season. Speculation as to what the software giant will announce currently centres on a higher capacity hard drive model and a cheaper, Flash-based Zune.â¦