Microsoft to Launch Zune in EU 220
An anonymous reader writes "Happy with the sales from the little brown music player here in the states, Microsoft is working to launch the Zune media player in Europe by the end of the year. According to the Washington Post article, they are trying to have a realistic outlook on the entrenched Apple product line. They're not trying to play catch-up at the moment ... they're just trying to get on the map. From the article: '"Our next round of introductions will probably be in time for the holiday of this year." [Jason Reindorp] said Microsoft planned extensive research with focus groups in Europe to see how it could be modified for a European consumer. He said the Zune had a 10.2 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte category, according to the latest data, and that it was still in line to sell over a million units by June 30, the end of its current fiscal year.'"
Soon... (Score:5, Funny)
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I didn't realise there were that many stupid people out there... then I remember the guy that was voted into the Whitehouse *again*...
Greetings! (Score:2, Funny)
wel-
come
Europe
to the
social
Re:Greetings! (Score:5, Insightful)
wel-
come
Europe
to the
anti-
social
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Focus groups (Score:5, Funny)
Preliminary results suggest that European consumers would like it to be "less crappy".
Re:Focus groups (Score:4, Funny)
Those snooty Europeans, think they're better'n us do they?
-better- europeans (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Focus groups (Score:4, Interesting)
The main problem is the perception that it wasn't built for the consumer, but for the media producers. This is another one for the bargain bucket if you ask me.
I'm sure the designers were able to convince themselves that users want Zune style restrictions in their media experience, but history shows that people will gravitate towards the simplest device that meets their needs, and the Zune isn't it.
The sad thing is there is probably some kickass hardware in the thing, but it's been tasked, as I said, to suit media producers first, which is the wrong way round.
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The news just came after I have started noticing iPods around me more often than before. I guess with iPod Nano and its price Apple had finally nabbed European market. I welcome M$ to challenge the 150€ price of 4GB iPod Nano.
I have had two non-iPods before and have to confess that iPod is most invisible of all: SanDisk Sansa does often needs to be booted up and boot takes ~10-15 seconds (important to add that sound quality - just like on recent Creatives - sucks big time) and Philips SA117 had jus
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I live in a part of Europe that's as far south as you can get while still being in Europe (Spain), and computers are everywhere, as are personal music players (mostly iPods) -- just about everyone seems to have some sort of broadband Internet link too. However, it is likely that the Zune will have a fairly difficult time here despite this due to the iconic status that the iPod has attained, especially among females, few of whom would even c
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My roomate is Vietnamese and she asked me to rip some cassettes so that she could listen to them on her new iPod nano. So I had a grand old time entering the song names and artists in Vietnamese, complete with all the accents and such. When we moved it to her iPod, I was curious as to whether it would have a problem with this or not.
Nope. No problem. All the accents and every
Fo Shizzle (Score:3, Funny)
Europeans Love Windows Media Player (Score:3, Funny)
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The "30 GB cathegory"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even fish would find that statement too fishy. (Score:5, Insightful)
This statement sounds fishy: "He said the Zune had a 10.2 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte category, according to the latest data,..."
I suspect most people don't buy the 30 GigaByte iPod. I suspect that the "latest data" is only for new sales, and doesn't take into account all the iPods already sold in that category.
I also suspect that the "latest data" is a complete lie. Most people who call themselves marketing professionals are professional liars more than anything, in my experience.
I'd like to know how many people with no knowledge of MP3 players bought a Zune to give to someone as a Christmas present. I'd like to know how many Zune owners are dissatisfied with them.
--
U.S. government violence encourages other violence.
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Not that lack of support stops many of the support queries anyhoo.
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Maybe it's the after Christmas closeout sale stuff that didn't sell. Most other players were sold out. I went to 3 stores looking for a 30 Gig Zen. The droid at Best Buy thought I said Zune and didn't know about the Zen.
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Is it just me, or is it strangely telling that the only ads on that site are for Apple's iPhone? ^_^
Sony still saying "no sharing"? (Score:2)
With a rollout in EU, and an anticipated 1M units sold by June here, what is the impact with the latest development whereby songs purchased for the Zune are not "squirtable" courtesy SONY's proscription? Is it really true about 50% of SONY songs purchased in the Microsoft way are not shareable with other Zune owners (if you can find them)?
If so, what is the Zune but yet another mp3 player (yamp?)? A music and video player offered by a corporation that betrayed not only those sucked into the siren song of
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I would guess that the sharing feature is not a show stopper for most people. The real question is whether or not the Zune will be priced under the iPod or any of the oth
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10.2 percent? (Score:5, Funny)
How specific do you want to be? How about this:
He said the Zune had a 10.2 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte category, and 100 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte Zune category.
Re:10.2 percent? (Score:5, Funny)
"If you can't make the numerator rarger, make the denominator smarrer."
-- Guy Kawasaki - The Computer Curmudgeon
The market share percentage is misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
The market share percentage is certainly misleading when you look at the raw numbers: the Zune was introduced in November, and by June (7 months later) they say they will have sold 1 million. On the other hand, Apple sold 21 million iPods in the last quarter alone [wikipedia.org], and over 8 million in each of the previous 3 quarters.
In other words, by June Apple should be selling about as many iPods every 10 days as there were Zunes sold in 7 months. Put it that way, and it's hard for Microsoft to brag about.
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The whole thing reminds me of the XBox: MS didn't sell many units at first, and we were laughing at them. But now, the XBox360 is already outselling the Wee and the Playstation3 [iht.com] (although not the PS2).
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Yes, but how many of those are iPod Shuffles? How many are iPod Nanos? While I'm sure that the (full-size) iPod has outsold the Zune by a considerable margin, it's only fair to compare the Zune to its direct competition.
I'm sure the Honda Fit has outsold the Lexus GS600 by a big margin too, but it's not a perticularly important comparison.
Regardless, the fact is that the current ge
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Your feature list would cripple the product.
Not easy to do well. Either it has a horrible UI (like all of the no-name players you mention) which can't handle searching by ID3 tags, or it has to do its own indexing. The latter is not easy - even recognizing when new files show up is not trivial, given that the computer is talking to it through the USB mass storage interface as a block
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Wrong on all points. The players would decode with the CPU as well, unless you're expecting separate hardware for each of these half-dozen codecs you're demanding. Low resolutions don't help enough - I've seen skipping playing a 480i (SDTV) clip, and whether I'm viewing that in a tiny window or scaling
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How did you determine that it's a power hog? If by the battery not lasting very long, you've made my point.
Ahh, the old straw man [wikipedia.org]. Nicely played.
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Same idea here, it looks like. Wedge yourself into the market, deal with the BSOD jokes, but keep u
Possible reason for the move (Score:4, Funny)
Bert
Fishy Numbers (Score:4, Interesting)
the Zune had a 10.2 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte category, according to the latest data...
That's fishy to me because it sounds like they mean of concurrent sales (meaning it wouldn't include people who bought 30gb iPods when Apple still made them in that size).
What that means is, of all media players sold this year that store 30GB of data that aren't iPods, the Zune has a 10% market share which, factoring in Apple's huge part of that market, is much, much smaller a percentage than it sounds like.
Triv
Re:Fishy Numbers (Score:4, Informative)
the Zune had a 10.2 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte category, according to the latest data...
That's fishy to me because it sounds like they mean of concurrent sales (meaning it wouldn't include people who bought 30gb iPods when Apple still made them in that size).
What that means is, of all media players sold this year that store 30GB of data that aren't iPods, the Zune has a 10% market share which, factoring in Apple's huge part of that market, is much, much smaller a percentage than it sounds like.
Triv
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The latest iPod comes in 30GB and 80GB. Where are you guys getting this notion that Apple no longer makes 30GB iPods? A quick visit to apple.com will prove that untrue.
You're absolutely right - I had it in my head that the iPods were coming in 60 and 80 gb flavors at the moment.
ah well.
triv
Re:Fishy Numbers (Score:5, Funny)
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It wasn't on Sale Here? (Score:5, Funny)
I've got a Zune (Score:5, Interesting)
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I saw the Zune TV ads. It's share, share and happy people. There is a huge board of a happy girl (Joni Mitchell when she was very young looking) at Meijer (grocery store in Midwest). Anyway, you bought one so it worked.
Welcome to 2 years ago. Real Rhapsody, Napster already did this. Also, Del
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Informative)
(It doesn't bother you that everything you've bought will go poof if you don't keep paying $15 every month?)
All you can eat did not work before. (Score:2)
The killer feature, to me, is the unlimited download subscription service. I've been having a lot of fun with that.
That's about the only positive thing anyone ever says about any M$ player. The problem is that most of them don't want it enough to pay for it and hate the software so much that they don't use it even when they have been forced to pay for it by their school. I'm glad you are happy with it, but you would have been happier with just about any other player when you realize how bad the battery
Low bar (Score:4, Funny)
I guess their expections were rather on the low side.
So wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Ballmer said 20-25% of all hard disks models (Score:3, Informative)
Brown? (Score:3, Funny)
When You Head up the Zune Product & Ballmer... (Score:4, Insightful)
You had best get your RESUME OUT THERE NOW, and get that FLACK JACKET & HELMET on because you never known when chairs are going to fly again.
None of this is surprising to anyone I've talked to. No One!
What I am hearing from diehard PC users I run across is subdued speculation, and NOT about Zune. The speculation is all whether VISTA will mean anything to them.
I pity the project managers under Ballmer, because their stomachs must be tied in a knot 24 hours a day. Been there, done that, and you can't survive long that way.
European modifications.. (Score:5, Funny)
Beige?
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Europe collectively..... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't believe it (Score:2)
I have a hard time believing this - with even 10% market share, I think I'd have seen one "in the wild" by now.
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Out of all the 30GB hard-disks bought last year, 10.2 percent bought for the purpose was Zune to be used as an external hard disk,
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With all the ribbing, who would admit to having one? If I got one for Christmas, I would stick it in my pocket and keep it there. I might pick up a nice pair of white headphones to go with it.
On the map (Score:2)
Comparatively speaking, it's a bit like Sealand's efforts to try and "get on the map" as a country when it's sitting right next to the much larger, more recognized, and somewhat more respected Isle-of-Great-Britain-like Apple.
Opinion on the Zune (Score:5, Interesting)
It discusses:
- MS Zune's does not work with MS Windows Vista
- MS Zune's incompatibility with (even) MSN Music Format (you have to rebuild your music collection)
- 4 registration's before buying music from the Zune music store (when player installs, MS passport, Music Store Website, Tag registration)
- Zune points for buying music, to mislead consumers on the price of music (1 Zune point > 1 dollar, thus 0.79 ZunePoint looks cheaper)
- Zune player WiFi music share expires songs shared after 3 times listening or 3 days (whichever comes first)
Hilarious!
See also: CNN.com ridicules Zune Player [google.com]
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Microsoft's four steps to Zune profitability (Score:2)
2. Watch Zune fail
3. Introduce Zune in Europe in the hopes it will succeed there, where DRM's blocking of Fair Use is illegal in some countries, resulting in Zune's ultimate failure and going the way of Microsoft Bob
4. ??? Profit ???
Windows Mobile. (Score:2)
The Zune would have had a wealth of software including GPS.
missing features for EU (Score:2)
Even better, could Microsoft please put in a (digital audio broadcasting) DAB radio module and allow you to record digital radio (like the Pure PocketDAB2000, of which I have one, whose only downside is that it takes SD cards for mass storage with a maximum size of 2GB). Noone's sued Pure, unlike the makers of XM radios in the USA, so it's
Marketing Data is HUGELY incomplete (Score:2)
So that number is HUGELY vague because those are really big retailers for the iPod and other MP3 players.
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Probably convenient that there is no 30 gigabyte iPod.
Nyuk Nyuk... the opposing team left the field at halftime and they still lost the game. oh puuullleeeezzzzzz..
Re:iPod? (Score:4, Informative)
Of course it is a funny statement to see coming from Microsoft.
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Well, what did you expect? "We think we have some overall marketshare, but we can't say for sure, because the figure is lower than the error in the survey"?
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Probably convenient that there is no 30 gigabyte iPod.
Sam Krupa
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But in all reality, it's the Nanos that dominate the market, not the 30GB videos.
Re:iPod? (Score:4, Funny)
You're right. My 5G iPod [apple.com] is actually a 27.82GB model according to the Capacity field in iTunes.
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It's a way to rally the troops more than anything. The Zune is getting hammered like a rivet in a steel bridge.
Cliffhanger (Score:2)
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And had a store for the tunes with prices 50% lower with a full catalog....
People buy iPods because they can use it at the hottest online music store. Nobody buys a Zune so they can shop at the MS Zune store. I haven't heard one rave review of the wonderful selection and prices at the Zune store except one person here in this thread. Someone likes the Subscr
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People laughed at the xbox, and said how will they beat Sony and its PS2? The xbox360 is now wiping the floor with the PS3. However, this is as much due to Sony's failures as MS's successes - to repeat this trick with Zune and Zune-v2, MS need Apple to really f*$%-up badly!
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think I speak for most europeans when I say brown does not make me think nazi. It makes me think shit :)
OT: You made me pass a mouthful of Margarita through my nose... very funny.
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Granted, you can get an ipod (or in particular a linux formatted 3rd gen ipod), and put regular unDRMed mp3s on it. As you point out it does make the player unnecessarily more complicated, among other minor problems. However, the fact that there is no free
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I forget which, but don't Archos or iRiver pretty much support 3rd party apps (well, 3rd party OS).
Really, there's no shortage. I just found the DAP database [dapreview.net], where you can enter a set of criteria, bring up detailed comparison tables, and find the audio player that suits you -- e.g. if my ideal criteria are support for FLAC/Vorbis, good battery life, good HDD space, data transfer with any OS, and radio, I can easily find out that the Cowon range is the one for me.
I haven't yet seen any results mentioning the Zune, probably because when I'm entering criteria, I'm entering criteria that I want, and they
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