Microsoft Announces Zune Pricing and Ship Date
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Digital media player will ship November 14 for $249; Zune Marketplace details also released.
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Microsoft's highly-anticipated "Zune" portable media device is set to make its first official appearance at an invite-only press event Thursday. The unveiling will follow the introduction of a completely revamped iPod lineup by Apple just two days earlier.
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Sales of the Microsoft Zune appear to be trailing off rather quickly after a fast start, leading some analysts to believe consumer interest is waning. The best selling model, black, ranks well below its competitors in sales.
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Buy.com has the Zune Home AV Kit, normally $99.99, for $19.99 plus shipping. It connects any Zune model to a TV or stereo receiver.
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Microsoft Corp. plans to introduce several new consumer products on Oct. 12 at an event in Los Angeles. The announcements are expected to include an update to Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 and the first devices using Media Center Extender technology.
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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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Microsoft Corp.  will most  likely ship its upcoming Windows Vista operating system on time  and meet its deadline for both corporate and retail consumers,  a Wall Street analyst said on Wednesday.
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Microsoft Corp.  forecast on  Wednesday that sales of its Zune music player will exceed one  million units by the end of June 2007 despite a tepid start for  the device.
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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. 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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(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 has beaten its goal of shipping over a million Zune digital music players by June.
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As first confirmed by BetaNews earlier this month, Microsoft said Thursday that it would match the price of Apple's 30GB iPod, and lower the price of its Zune portable music device to $249.99 USD. Zune goes on sale November 14.
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Microsoft says Japanese firm Toshiba will make its Zune portable music player, due out later this year.
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New features, grey area Microsoft's private deal with Universal Music to pay the record label a voluntary royalty of $1 for every Zune player it sells has raised eyebrows across both the technology and music industries. But it might not be the last payment Redmond owes from Zune, we've discovered.â¦
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Microsoft has cut the price of its Zune music player by $50 even as Apple launches new, improved iPods that now offer Wi-Fi connectivity and touch screens.
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PERSPECTIVE This week's revelations from Microsoft concerning its forthcoming Zune portable media player have been appropriately called a "non-announcement announcement." But analysts tell BetaNews there's still good reason to believe this bewildering new market entry could actually succeed.