Microsoft eyes music, not video, as Zune target
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Microsoft Corp.  sees expanding  the digital music market -- and not necessarily video -- as the  priority for its new "Zune" portable media player, a company  executive said on Thursday.
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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 is looking to take a bite out of Apple&#39;s lion&#39;s share of the digital-music marketplace with three new products that promise to do whatever Apple&#39;s iTunes and iPod can do, and more.
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Microsoft Corp. officials said yesterday that the company has spent millions of dollars preparing a version of its Windows operating system without a program for playing digital music and
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Microsoft's answer to the iPod, the Zune player, will cost $249.99 and is slated to ship Nov. 14.
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Often forgotten amid all of the iPhone hype, Microsoft, too, makes a portable music player that is holding its own in the marketplace - at least for a first generation product. The company is now reportedly preparing a second revision called the "Scorpio" with an 80GB hard drive, which will join a new flash memory based Zune dubbed "Draco."
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As expected, Microsoft on Thursday took the wraps off its Zune portable media player, set to be available in time for the holidays. Zune features a 30GB hard drive, wireless connectivity and will come in three colors. But pricing has not been decided. Photos: View images of Microsoft's Zune
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Software giant Microsoft unveiled a &quot;Zune&quot; MP3 player and online store to challenge Apple Computer's internationally popular iPod-iTunes personal entertainment duo.
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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. 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 plans to release an update to the firmware of its Zune music player in mid-March, remedying several issues including skipping. However, the update does not include any support for direct video downloading or podcasts just yet.
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Microsoft Corp. officials for the  first time have confirmed that the software giant is readying a  portable music player and integrated service, shedding new  light on a topic that has fueled rampant speculation in news  reports and blog postings for weeks.
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SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp. cut the suggested retail price of its Zune music and video player by 20 percent yesterday, the same day Apple Inc. released new versions of its iPod media player.
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SEATTLE -- Microsoft Corp.'s effort to compete against Apple's iPod juggernaut will focus on the idea that people want to be able to easily share music with friends and others.
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Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday that it  is &quot;not unreasonable&quot; for the company to introduce a mobile  phone combined with features of its Zune digital music player  to compete with Apple Inc.&#39;s iPhone.
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Microsoft raises the curtain on its challenge to the iPod, the Zune digital media player.
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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¦