26 January 2009

The Zune: A Great Failed Product

The prophets of doom are reading the tea leaves and saying the Zune is on its way out. Perhaps. MS is almost certainly losing money on it. This is really a great shame. The Touch is murdering everything outside the commodity player market, and the whole market for DAPs is quickly becoming commoditized. But in the latest revision, MS finally got the Zune to where it should have been on Day One. Namely, it not only has wi-fi, it can now connect to the Zune Marketplace over any open network. With a Zune Pass ($14.99/mo), this means you can now listen to any of 3 million songs anywhere you have wi-fi access. I've said before that this is what Apple needs to do. (They will not, I am sure, until forced to.) It may be too little too late, but still, we can be glad that MS (for a change) is innovating and showing the way.

No comments: