Those of us who love “On the Media” on NPR and the sarcastic Bob Garfield will appreciate that a one on one with Bill Gates is probably not going to turn out well. Unlike the fawning Businessweek type business rags that getting on their knees talking to business not-so-luminaries (anyone remember Business at the Speed [...]

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Mega music oligopoly Universal Records pushed Microsoft into a corner today after they inked a download deal for the Zune Marketplace one week before it was due to go live.
Universal Music, a unit of Vivendi, will receive a royalty on the Zune player in exchange for licensing its recordings for Microsoft’s new digital music [...]

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Mike Elgan, who is the author of last weeks Computer world article “Opinion: Why Microsoft’s Zune scares Apple to the core” has kindly responded to my posting last week. I have taken the time to response in more detail this week.
The State of Play
It is now common knowledge that first part of the iPod [...]

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The jolly jokers over at Tech Digest have blogged the “Top Ten Reasons to Love Zune“. Here is my response.
1) Everyone loves and underdog - yep but Microsoft is not an underdog. An underdog is Sandisk or Creative or even Sony, but Microsoft is no underdog, and Gates does not need anymore money even [...]

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The new Zune Player from Microsoft is to be released before Christmas.  According to Analyst Shaun Wu, the Zune is a repurposed Toshiba Gigabeat Player with some new software.

“Microsoft Zune appears underwhelming. Microsoft had hinted of an all-new design from the ground up, but from our analysis, it appears that the Zune is essentially a [...]

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The surprise announcement that the new 30GB Video iPod to $249 has left Microsoft flat footed. They had intended to announce the Zune 30GB player at $299 later this year. This would have still been at a loss but now Microsoft is looking at a deeper loss per player than they initially thought.
In the meantime, [...]

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I think I have said before that the only thing that Zune is going to kill is Playsforsure partners. This player is no IPod Killer. Despite Microsoft’s marketing dollars the product still needs to deliver an experience unique and compelling to the intrenched competition. I have argued this before about Linux on the Desktop and [...]

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Microsoft’s new Zune player means death to the “Playsforsure” platform for the delivery of music services. CNet has a go at explaining Microsoft’s bipolar behavior and Steve Balmer speaks in riddles:
“We do need a more consistent experience,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a January interview. “That doesn’t mean it’s bad to have a variety [...]

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Om Malik, the 800 pound guerilla of non-blogging blogging, weighs in today on what a earlier posted about, that is Microsoft’s Attention Deficit Disorder. Here is the first 6 that he mentions that is on Steve Balmer’s ToDo List:

Figure out a way to keep the current cash cows, Windows and Office, creating more cash, [...]

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My Windows machine the other day decided to stop working after I installed the Windows Spyware from Microsoft. This is the “critical update” that installs the checker to see if I have a legitimate Windows version. Bear in mind that I have a Dell D800 and the Windows XP license key is glued to the [...]

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