Zune on Arrival

November 17th, 2006 · No Comments

The delivery of the Zune player to the market came and went on Tuesday. There were no long lines of bleary eyed gamesters, no mad rush, crushing crowds or excited Japanese teenagers unlike the cult like delivery of the Playstation yesterday. This probably does not mean terribly much in the longer run but as someone who has watched Microsoft for a long time (and even went to a Windows 95 launch, remember Start Me Up) this was a disappointment. The real secret of Microsoft is that it is run like a Political Party. It’s Public Relations are extremely sophisticated and it is well run messaging machine.

CNN

Microsoft VP Bryan Lee [CNN Video Link] did a reasonably good job of pitching the Zune Player as they spread out for the morning shows. These placements are very important because for MOST consumers they will get their information from these shows and the mainstream media. They will NOT be reading tech crunch. The reason I make this point is because Microsoft has to reach into certain audience beyond the already blasé tech heads who already have invested in 3 different IPods. The key differentiator that Microsoft is going after is the sharing capability and that was they kept driving home. However this is a feature that if push came to shove Apple could very easily add to the IPod and probably in more compelling ways. One of the sops to the Music Industry that Microsoft made was even if the audio (could be podcast) you want to share is your own, it will still be wrapped in DRM so that it will only play 3 times. This is a potential problem for users, a trap I don’t think that Apple would had walked into.

CNN Video

What they didn’t need was Soledad O’Brien schlepping a IPod Shuffle onto her immaculate cream Gucci [CNN Video Link] suit while Miles O’Brien says “why don’t they [Microsoft] get some decent design people”. Without the support of people like Miles and Soledad you are going to have problems getting the carefully crafted story out.

NBC Today

[spot the old G4 IPod...]

On ABC and NBC’s Today they stuck to the story and did not editorialize. What the talking points that clearly stood out was that wireless sharing is the way to go, so the social sharing thing, and that Microsoft has the ability (read money) to wait it out to beat Apple, just look at the Xbox 360. This begs the question what about Sony, that also has the ability to build a successful music player business but has not even made a dent in the Apple IPod’s market share.

There are many imponderables to whether this is a successful product however they will cause enormous headaches for their (former) partners in the Playsforsure segment.

However what Microsoft does know is that they needed to get to 10% market share and that was not going to come from Apple. They needed to take that market share from their Playsforsure partners in order to launch their assault on Apple.

Time will tell.

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