Zune HDs got free publicity for adding HD Radio
"New Zune To Include HD Radio"
"Bob Struble, President/CEO of iBiquity Digital Corporation, commented, We are very excited about the launch of HD Radio technology on Microsoft?s Zune HD. We are planning with the HD Radio Alliance to promote Zune HD to consumers."
http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=1342290
MS was so desperate to revive their failed Zune players, that they paid iBiquity confiscatory licensing fees, plus about $12/per HD Radio chipset. This is typical iBiquity tactic - free publicity, in exchange for including their failed, crappy chipsets. On Amazon, the Zune HDs are a flop:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers...ef=pd_ts_e_nav
With the new iPod Nano, Jobs was smart enough to realize that ANALOG FM also does tagging, just like HD Radio, but ANALOG FM chipsets cost about 50 cents, and don't drain the hell out of batteries, as HD Radio. Did we see Jobs having to barter his products like MS - no! Kudos to Jobs for doing his research on the HD Radio scam!
"Bob Struble, President/CEO of iBiquity Digital Corporation, commented, We are very excited about the launch of HD Radio technology on Microsoft?s Zune HD. We are planning with the HD Radio Alliance to promote Zune HD to consumers."
http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=1342290
MS was so desperate to revive their failed Zune players, that they paid iBiquity confiscatory licensing fees, plus about $12/per HD Radio chipset. This is typical iBiquity tactic - free publicity, in exchange for including their failed, crappy chipsets. On Amazon, the Zune HDs are a flop:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers...ef=pd_ts_e_nav
With the new iPod Nano, Jobs was smart enough to realize that ANALOG FM also does tagging, just like HD Radio, but ANALOG FM chipsets cost about 50 cents, and don't drain the hell out of batteries, as HD Radio. Did we see Jobs having to barter his products like MS - no! Kudos to Jobs for doing his research on the HD Radio scam!
Comments
"HD Radio portables — No one's buying a lot of transistor radios anymore. The headphone radios that people used to run around the park with are all gone, and if radio wants to continue to be a reach medium, they've got to be in the devices people carry, which increasingly are cell phones, MP3 players, personal navigation devices... Insignia HD — I think this will be a nice little interim step for jogging or working out. It proves the viability [of the technology] and hopefully we'll get sales; but no, this is not going to sell in the hundreds of thousands... Radio alone — the sad reality of where it is — as a standalone device, it just doesn't exist anymore as a category. Nobody goes into Best Buy and says 'Where's the radio department?'"
http://www.rwonline.com/article/87370
Struble also short-supplied the Insignia Portable HD Radio at Best Buy, initially indicating that he was impressed with sales, but now, has changed his tune - LOL! MS must have learned this tactic from iBiquity, by also short-supplying the Zune HDs at retailers, especially Amazon. We have already heard Struble praising Zune HD sales, but shortly, we will hear otherwise from other sources. Questionable tactics by unscrupulous corporations.
Yet it is disappointing that the FCC let a single corporation control the technology that has become the defacto digital radio standard in the united states. iBiquity collects licensing fees from every "HD" radio broadcaster and manufacturer. And yes, iBiquity chose the term "HD" in order to be purposefully deceptive.