09/05/2007, 2:40am, EDT
Wednesday, September 5thZune price dropped to $200 ahead of Apple event
One day before Apple is expected to introduce new iPods at a special event in San Francisco ("The Beat Goes On"), Microsoft has announced that it is dropping the price of the 30GB Zune music player to $200. A posting to Microsoft's Zune Insider blog reads "Some of you may have already heard, but tomorrow we’re dropping the suggested retail price for Zune to $199. It's part of the normal product lifecycle, something we’ve had on the books for months. We just got some research back and customer satisfaction with the 30GB device is really high (around 94%) and we expect even more consumers will now want to discover the Zune experience at the new lower price."
The price drop comes shortly after Mindy Mount, the corporate vice president and CFO of Microsoft's entertainment and device division, said that she grades the Zune a "B-" in its current state, noting that the player is doing well, saleswise, for "a product out in less than a year and a half," but that the company is still developing the brand and trying to expand its identity
Multiple sources claim that Apple's "Beat Goes On" event should mark a radical departure from the company's traditional line, claim multiple sources inside Taiwan electronics suppliers. The contacts allege that a premium iPod to be announced on September 5th will include a large touchscreen similar to that of the iPhone and will also include Wi-Fi for networking features while swapping the hard disk for "high storage capacity" NAND flash memory, the sources said.
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It's not that the Zune is bad, it really isn't. If there were no iPod, it would be a pretty cool device. It is just Microsoft's approach that is really, eventually, a problem.
They try to take a successful market (games, network equipment, music players, browsers...) and then buy their way into it. Hey the Xbox 360 is a great device, BUT it has yet to turn a profit for MS.
And adding the Zune to the discount bin isn't going to help. People not only have iPods, they have iPod speakers, cables, docking stations in their car, etc. They're not going to give all that up.
MS was smart and got out of the networking hardware business very quickly. Maybe the same person who made that decision needs to really look hard at the Zune.
Just my too sense (sic.).
Now MS is trying to steal some publicity from today's iPod event - good luck MS. Maybe they anticipate Apple lowering the price, and want to say "we did it first."
Having said that, I sold my Zune because their software is only so-so and more importantly, the Zune cannot display kana, kanji, or hangul. That was a deal breaker.
I almost bought a Cowon product (very nice equipment), but I am holding out til this afternoon to see what Apple is putting out. If it is a nice touchscreen-based unit (wifi is a bonus) then I will break down and get it instead.
If Microsoft were to try and do their own thing without copying Apple (much less competing to overthrow) they could gain a nice little niche and all would be well...but the big words they throw out just make them look like idiots when they (in the end) cannot take Apple down.
The only company that will take Apple out of the race is...well, Apple. Look at Sony. They were the "big dogs" on the blog, but their hubris caught up to them. I hope Apple can avoid this for quite some time.
Until this afternoon...