It’s Official – Microsoft Launches New Zune Music Players For The Holiday Season

Authored by Jay Baage on October 3, 2007 - 5:18am.

The rumors that DMW reported on Monday were true, Microsoft introduced three new models of its Zune digital media player on Tuesday. These second generation music players are Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPods, but the company still has a lot to prove in the eyes of the consumers. Its first generation players have not been well received by the market and only sold 1.2 million units as compared to the over 100 million units of the various models of iPods sold since its 2001 launch.

A quick look at the new Zune players reveals that they come in 4-gigabyte, 8-gigabyte and 80-gigabyte models and they all have a feature that allows a user to automatically sync media via a WiFi network from a PC to the Zune when its battery is charging.

However, there is still no WiFi store that allows you to download songs straight to the device, but Microsoft said it would add more than 1 million MP3 songs free of digital rights management onto Marketplace, declining to identify music labels it planned to work with on that.

The pricing of the new Zune players when they go on sale in November is equivalent to similar-sized iPods: the 4-GB model will go on sale at $149, the 8-GB Zune will cost $199 and the 80-GB model will sell for $249.

The immediate reactions to the new Zunes are that they certainly are sexier than the first generation, but hardly enough to take on Apple’s grip of the market. And I ask again, where is the ZunePhone?

"I don't see Microsoft gaining market share on Apple, but it may gain share against the other also-rans," said Van Baker, analyst at research firm Gartner to Reuters, noting SanDisk Corp and Creative Technology Ltd may be more vulnerable.

I will certainly be interesting to hear what Chad Gibson, Group Manager for Zune at Microsoft, who will be one of the speakers at DMW’s Digital Music Forum West that kick’s off today, has to say about the new Zunes and Microsoft's digital music strategy going forwards.

Joakim Baage

Published in DMW Daily, October 3, 2007

Previous story: Ted Cohen: “Subscription Is Going To Win Over A La Carte Pricing”
Next story: Guy Kawasaki: Check Out Razorfish's Interesting Study On Consumers’ Digital Media Habits

Email this page

Comments

Zune 2

Submitted by Matt (not verified) on October 3, 2007 - 5:35am.

I think the coolest rumor I have heard out of this is that the first gen Zunes will be eligible for the firmware upgrade to add the software features. That is awesome.