Microsoft Zune, Rival to iPod, to Screen on September 14
Close on the heels of Apple unveiling a revamped iPod lineup, Microsoft is expected to officially reveal the details of it’s portable media player ‘Zune’, at an invite-only press event today…
Close on the heels of Apple unveiling a revamped iPod lineup, Microsoft is expected to officially reveal the details of its portable media player ‘Zune’, at an invite-only press event today. Little is known about Zune so far, although a few details have trickled out in the last few months after Microsoft showed the device to music industry executives.
Japanese electronics maker Toshiba will manufacture the 'Zune' portable media player. Toshiba's role was disclosed when the electronics company filed papers with the Federal Communications Commission. Kyrsa Dixon, a spokeswoman for one of Microsoft's public relations firms, confirmed that Toshiba would make the device.
Photos included in the filing show a white rectangular device with a large screen and several buttons. The minimalist feel closely resembles Apple’s iPod.
Manufactured by Toshiba, Zune will feature a a 30GB drive, black, brown, and cotton color options, with a duotone approach on each, FM tuner, 13 first party accessories available at launch, and a 50% larger screen than the iPod with video.
One feature will allow a person to act as a DJ, sending music to up to four other devices. "Once your DJ setting is on, you don't need to do anything else in order for others to listen to your stream," the manual explained. "If someone tunes in, you will see an onscreen notification that you have a listener."
Microsoft Zune 30GB will cost USD 399. Apple sells iPod 60GB for the same price, whereas iPod 30GB costs USD 299. Microsoft, however, believes that customers will be eager to pay more for its Zune player because it has broader feature-set, including ad-hoc music sharing between a group of people in the range of the device as well as digital radio.
Microsoft has said that Zune is key to the software maker's overall entertainment ambitions and that it will capitalise on and tie into the company's other entertainment offerings. These include the Xbox video game console, Microsoft's television technology, and the media-focused version of the Windows operating system that lets people do things like record and watch live television.
Still, Microsoft is expected to face tough competition from the iPod and iTunes juggernaut. Other hardware manufacturers, including Creative Technology and Samsung Electronics, offer portable media players using Microsoft's software, although they've had little success against Apple.
The announcement comes two days after Apple came out with a revamped line of iPods and launched its own movie-download service. The iPod dominates the market for portable music devices. Until now, Microsoft has tried to compete by providing the underlying software to a variety of device makers.
Zune represents a departure from that past strategy, with the company designing the device and music service itself. Publicly, at least, Microsoft executives have cautioned that taking on the iPod will be a long, difficult project. Robbie Bach, president of the company's Entertainment and Devices Division, told an audience of financial analysts in July that the project would require an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars over the next few years.
Bryan Lee, corporate vice president in Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division said, "We see this space as having the potential scale not of today's market, which sells 30, 40 million devices, but of something closer to the cell phone market, where you sell hundreds of millions of devices."
