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Microsoft has launched a refurbished version of its slow-selling digital player Zune. The revamp includes creation of a MySpace-style social-networking site. Despite its launch with much fanfare last December, Zune has been languishing.

Before the second version was launched yesterday, Microsoft said it managed to sell about 1.2 million digital players. “For something we pulled together in six months, we are very pleased with the satisfaction we got,” Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, said. “The satisfaction for the device was superhigh. The satisfaction on the software actually is where we’d expect to see a huge uptick this year. It was just so-so on the software side.”

Microsoft said it had re-engineered the Zune hardware and software and the associated digital music store to make them all easier to use. “I’m sure a year from now we’ll do even better,” Gates said. “But I’m blown away by what they’ve been able to do in a year.”

The company reworked the device’s navigation button. The Zune will be available in black, pink, green and red. Microsoft has dropped brown colour.
One of the most talked about feature and most criticised features in Zune was its music sharing function. However not many people were quite keen on sharing the feature in Zune due to restrictions such as shared songs expiring within a few days, even if the user did not play them. And a file acquired from one Zune user could not be shared with a third user.

Under the new rules, Microsoft said, shared songs would have no expiration date and it would be possible repeatedly to pass along songs sent from one device to another. But a shared file can be played only three times on each Zune.