Report: Zune sequel to break cover as early as Tuesday
Sometimes the target of jokes for its initial in-house attempt at a digital media player, Microsoft is poised to announce its first update to the line as soon as this week, if a new report holds true.
Citing insiders "close" to the event, BetaNews stirred anticipation on Monday by claiming that Microsoft would overhaul and expand its Zune player lineup as soon as Tuesday in an event to be attended by none other than company co-founder Bill Gates.
While sparing on some details, the tipster alleged that the Redmond, Wash.-based firm will release its first media player to employ flash memory for storage rather than a spinning hard disk. The device would be just 3 inches tall and 1.25 inches wide and would therefore be smaller than the first- or second-generation iPod nano in almost every respect -- but it would still have video playback, WiFi, and the other features from its larger sibling.
The hard drive model would be upgraded with a slimmer chassis but would otherwise be much the same as the original, the purported source said. A beta "community site" was also said to be launching along with a new set of accessories from Microsoft itself.
These specifications appear to line up with information first obtained by Gizmodo in August and later corroborated by secondary reports. A rendering of the new players showed two devices fundamentally similar to the present-day 30GB Zune but with a square-like control pad and a narrower, thinner profile. At the time, the image pointed to 4GB and 8GB flash-based Zunes shipping in four colors and a lone 80GB hard drive model in black.
However accurate the initial drawings, the current news would have Microsoft place much more faith in its portable player strategy. In its description of production plans, the report noted that Microsoft would manufacture 2.4 million flash and hard drive Zunes over the course of the holiday shopping season -- double what the company managed in the eight months between the Zune's November 2006 launch and the end of June. Most of these new sales would reportedly be flash models, which have typically sold for less in exchange for their reduced capacity.
Rumored Zune 2.0 Product Line | Image from Gizmodo
The Windows developer and now Zune maker has been modestly successful with its first effort, beating its initial target of one million players sold by the end of June but struggling to gain share from either Apple's iPods or other, smaller competitors such as SanDisk. Although keen to tout its ten percent of the hard drive-based media player market, the company has yet to pass the 3 percent threshold in the market as a whole. The flash Zune would be key to this strategy, according to the new claims.
If proven accurate, however, the information would also require this strategy to gather its momentum very quickly: the new Zunes would be ready by November, giving Microsoft just a few weeks to sell the brunt of its supply by Christmas.
Citing insiders "close" to the event, BetaNews stirred anticipation on Monday by claiming that Microsoft would overhaul and expand its Zune player lineup as soon as Tuesday in an event to be attended by none other than company co-founder Bill Gates.
While sparing on some details, the tipster alleged that the Redmond, Wash.-based firm will release its first media player to employ flash memory for storage rather than a spinning hard disk. The device would be just 3 inches tall and 1.25 inches wide and would therefore be smaller than the first- or second-generation iPod nano in almost every respect -- but it would still have video playback, WiFi, and the other features from its larger sibling.
The hard drive model would be upgraded with a slimmer chassis but would otherwise be much the same as the original, the purported source said. A beta "community site" was also said to be launching along with a new set of accessories from Microsoft itself.
These specifications appear to line up with information first obtained by Gizmodo in August and later corroborated by secondary reports. A rendering of the new players showed two devices fundamentally similar to the present-day 30GB Zune but with a square-like control pad and a narrower, thinner profile. At the time, the image pointed to 4GB and 8GB flash-based Zunes shipping in four colors and a lone 80GB hard drive model in black.
However accurate the initial drawings, the current news would have Microsoft place much more faith in its portable player strategy. In its description of production plans, the report noted that Microsoft would manufacture 2.4 million flash and hard drive Zunes over the course of the holiday shopping season -- double what the company managed in the eight months between the Zune's November 2006 launch and the end of June. Most of these new sales would reportedly be flash models, which have typically sold for less in exchange for their reduced capacity.
Rumored Zune 2.0 Product Line | Image from Gizmodo
The Windows developer and now Zune maker has been modestly successful with its first effort, beating its initial target of one million players sold by the end of June but struggling to gain share from either Apple's iPods or other, smaller competitors such as SanDisk. Although keen to tout its ten percent of the hard drive-based media player market, the company has yet to pass the 3 percent threshold in the market as a whole. The flash Zune would be key to this strategy, according to the new claims.
If proven accurate, however, the information would also require this strategy to gather its momentum very quickly: the new Zunes would be ready by November, giving Microsoft just a few weeks to sell the brunt of its supply by Christmas.
Comments
Doesn't look that bad, but doesn't look that sexy either. Unfortunately for Microsoft, if it isn't a home-run, it ends up being an also-ran against the iPod juggernaut.
No doubt they'll price it aggressively in an attempt to compete, but still, it won't do much vs Apple.
On the plus side, they are pretty slim.
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yes, but will it come in brown?
one can only hope.
one can only hope.....
And they will call it the Zune Maximus - the largest MP3 player in history!
yeah. . .
The Zune Nano. Big whoop... everyone's known that it's coming for a year now.
Doesn't look that bad, but doesn't look that sexy either. Unfortunately for Microsoft, if it isn't a home-run, it ends up being an also-ran against the iPod juggernaut.
No doubt they'll price it aggressively in an attempt to compete, but still, it won't do much vs Apple.
On the plus side, they are pretty slim.
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How do you know they're pretty slim? THe report never mentioned how slim they were, just how wide and tall. I'm curious to know how slim they ARE.
Oh, and how about the Zune software? Is it any better?
I think I'm going to sell all my Mac and iPod stuff and run down and get myself a Zune and a computer with VISTA!!! Maybe 2 or 3!!
I've also still never seen a Zune in the wild, much less two of the turkeys together (which is the whole point of its overblown wifi capabilities).
The main problem with the Zune is that they do everything the iPod does, but a full year (or more) after the iPod and doesn't do it as well.
I don't believe for a second that Microsoft sold 1 million Zunes by June. Sold into the channel, perhaps, but sold to consumers? No way, I don't believe.
I've also still never seen a Zune in the wild, much less two of the turkeys together (which is the whole point of its overblown wifi capabilities).
I frequently ask my daughter (a 9th grader) if she knows of anyone at her school that has a Zune. nada. Most have iPods, a few have Sandisk or similar. None has a Zune. You'd think someone would have had the misfortune of receiving one.
I don't believe for a second that Microsoft sold 1 million Zunes by June. Sold into the channel, perhaps, but sold to consumers? No way, I don't believe.
I've also still never seen a Zune in the wild, much less two of the turkeys together (which is the whole point of its overblown wifi capabilities).
Hey, that's a good point. Every day at work I see people running by my office window and every single one of them has an iPod, not a single Zune. In fact, I don't think I've every seen anyone with a Zune, which makes sense, I mean come on, how embarrassing. I still see people walking around with portable CD players, but no Zunes. It ain't easy be'in a Zune, so so lonely.
It was a brown one too and it wouldnt fit in his pocket....poor kid. (who just so happens to have the same first name as me
I saw my first zune in the wild last week! I was AMAZED and PERPLEXED.I live in Canada where they havent been released yet and someone was sitting beside me in the cafeteria at lunch one day! I made such a big deal to my friend and we were both staring at him. He noticed after a while so we left
It was a brown one too and it wouldnt fit in his pocket....poor kid. (who just so happens to have the same first name as me
Poor kid indeed, so got up and left huh. Must have that terrible disease embarasstobeseeninpublicwithzuneitis.
Don't worry, with iPod pre-innoculation, you can't catch it!
How do you know they're pretty slim? THe report never mentioned how slim they were, just how wide and tall. I'm curious to know how slim they ARE.
Also from the same site, and MUCH scarier:
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Microsoft is exactly like a real photocopier: the better the original looks, the worse the photocopy looks.
The main problem with the Zune is that they do everything the iPod does, but a full year (or more) after the iPod and doesn't do it as well.
The main problem for Microsoft is that there just isn't any compelling reason to SWITCH. Apple's got the image, the design, the ease-of-use, competitive pricing AND now MultiTouch.
All MS can do in that environment is copy, make a few brave noises about how the Zune has been "meeting expectations" (
The Zune is like a joke that never needed to be told.
Even worse, Microsoft competing, and getting consistently beaten by Apple here just improves Apple's image further. People see an Apple-branded product beating up on a Microsoft-branded product, and they start to go, "Hmm... maybe that applies to other things as well. Like computers, like software, like..."
All told, MS might've been better off just staying out this market to begin with. I don't buy that things are gonna turn around for them down the road... whenever that's happened, it's been because they were able to leverage their Windows monopoly in some way, or because the leader in a market totally screwed up. Neither one seems applicable here.
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