“If anything is doomed to failure, it is the Microsoft Zune. I have no idea who is marketing this device within the company, but from what I can tell, this is going to become a major turkey in the product mix. As far as I can tell, Microsoft should simply turn over all its marketing to the Xbox 360 folks—at least some of the people in that group have marketing skills,” John C. Dvorak reports for PC Magazine.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, the marketing skills required to push a product into a market by selling it at a loss for years must be prodigious.
Dvorak continues, “Here’s what tells me the Zune is a disaster (aside from its own incompatibilities with other Microsoft initiatives): the reviewer’s kit itself. The reviewer’s kit that contains a cover document that will do nothing more than anger and insult reviewers. There’s a surefire way to get attention!”
Dvorak reports, “Let me quote a few passages from the loaner device agreement, which is written in the format of a nondisclosure agreement. You can assume all reviews of this thing are skewed because of this document—unless someone just goes out and buys the Zune on the open market.”
Here’s one: “You may utilize and study the design, performance and operation of the Zune Reviewer Kit solely for the purposes of creating Reviews. This permission is for you and you only. You may not share these items with any third parties. In granting you these limited permissions, Microsoft is not transferring any title or other continuing rights to the Zune Reviewer Kit.“
Dvorak reports, “This means in the process of reviewing, you cannot show the device to your friends, your wife or kids, to get an opinion. Are they kidding me? …Microsoft should be maniacally seeding review units to anyone with a pulse, including bloggers. But no. This is yet another indicator that Zune will fail miserably—a clear marker. It will be a matter of time before this legal-driven creeping negative marketing impact will strangle the entire company. Meanwhile, Bill Gates is too busy buying hotel chains to even notice this sort of lunacy.”
Full article here.
So, now we know that not only does the Zune device suck, er.. squirt (whatever) and the Zune software sucks, but the Zune reviewer’s kit sucks, too. Three for three: Microsoft is nothing if not consistent. Consistently bad.
Related articles:
Ballmer: Zune’s Wi-Fi will help Microsoft challenge Apple’s iPod+iTunes – November 14, 2006
CNN ridicules Microsoft’s Zune while gushing over Apple’s new iPod shuffle – November 14, 2006
Engadget: Microsoft’s Zune software: ‘It sucks’ – November 13, 2006
Early Microsoft Zune customer greeted with Zune ‘Installation Error’ – November 13, 2006
Zuned: What’s the ‘deal’ with Microsoft Points? – November 12, 2006
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Apple has no need to worry about Microsoft’s cumbersome, chunkier Zune – November 11, 2006
BusinessWeek: ‘By this time next year, Microsoft’s Zune will be considered a dismal failure’ – November 10, 2006
USA Today’s Baig: Microsoft Zune is no Apple iPod – November 09, 2006
Forbes: Microsoft’s Zune stinks; like ‘Microsoft Bob,’ only more embarrassing – November 09, 2006
NY Times’ Pogue: Zune should come in green to match Microsoft’s iPod envy – November 09, 2006
Mossberg: MS Zune has ‘too many compromises, missing features’ vs. ‘thin, sleek, elegant’ Apple iPod – November 09, 2006
Microsoft to pay Universal for every Zune sold – November 09, 2006
Analysts: Microsoft Zune may end up being a flop – November 08, 2006
Are 58% of iPod owners really thinking of a Zune switch? – November 08, 2006
Survey: 58% of iPod owners planning another MP3 player purchase will consider Microsoft’s Zune – November 01, 2006
Zune is from Microsoft, but Microsoft doesn’t want anybody to know about it – November 07, 2006
Microsoft Zune to be US-only, no firm plans to launch anywhere else globally – November 03, 2006
Five Microsoft Zune TV commercials – November 02, 2006
JupiterResearch: Apple’s iPod will dominate for foreseeable future; Microsoft’s Zune insignificant – October 25, 2006
Ellen DeGeneres Show gives away Microsoft Zunes, studio audience goes berserk – October 23, 2006
More Microsoft Zune myths explored – October 20, 2006
Five more Microsoft Zune myths – October 18, 2006
Microsoft Zune intensifies chaos in Apple iPod+iTunes also-ran market – October 16, 2006
Newsweek Q&A: Apple CEO Steve Jobs discusses iPod’s impact, Microsoft’s Zune, and more – October 15, 2006
Microsoft’s Ballmer: Zune device not money loser, wishes Apple’s 30GB iPod was $299 instead of $249 – October 11, 2006
Microsoft’s consumer electronics track record: long string of failures – October 11, 2006
MP3.com founder: ‘Zune will be an expensive failure for Microsoft because consumers aren’t stupid’ – October 06, 2006
Microsoft fails to secure key Zune domains – October 04, 2006
Microsoft rigs Zune with tricky pricing and proprietary money schemes – October 03, 2006
Why Microsoft’s Zune won’t kill Apple’s iPod – October 03, 2006
10 Apple iPod vs. Microsoft Zune myths – October 02, 2006
Analyst: Zune could lead to ‘civil war’ between Microsoft and Windows Media partners – September 29, 2006
Thurrott on Microsoft’s Zune: ‘The makings of a disaster, what the heck are these people thinking?’ – September 29, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft Zune’s as good as dead on arrival – September 28, 2006
Microsoft sets 30GB Zune price at $249.99 – September 28, 2006
How Microsoft’s Zune can kill Apple’s iPod – September 21, 2006
Microsoft’s Zune insanity – September 21, 2006
The Microsoft Zune 1.0 dud – September 20, 2006
Microsoft’s underwhelming Zune a ‘viral DRM’ device – September 18, 2006
SanDisk teams with RealNetworks against new common foe: Microsoft Zune – September 18, 2006
Creative does Apple’s dirty work by immediately attacking Microsoft’s Zune – September 17, 2006
Motley Fool’s Jayson: Microsoft’s ‘just plain ugly’ Zune a meager offering, not an iPod killer – September 15, 2006
What’s in a name? ‘Zune’ a French-Canadian euphemism for penis or vagina – September 15, 2006
Crave at CNET: ‘Microsoft Zune, all the excitement that brown can bring’ – September 15, 2006
Microsoft’s Zune underwhelms – September 15, 2006
Enderle: Microsoft Zune ‘a design mistake’ – September 15, 2006
Microsoft hypocrisy exposed with Zune: What ever happened to ‘choice?’ – September 14, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft Zune with fake scroll wheel ‘hardly an Apple iPod killer’ – September 14, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft Zune won’t spoil Apple’s biggest iPod Christmas ever – September 14, 2006
Microsoft unveils Zune 30GB player, Zune Marketplace; declines to disclose prices – September 14, 2006
Analyst: Microsoft’s Zune an ‘underwhelming’ repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat; no threat to Apple iPod – August 30, 2006
Microsoft confirms brick-like Zune to be made by Toshiba – August 25, 2006
Microsoft Zune is chunky brick made by Toshiba – August 25, 2006
Microsoft to sell single Zune model this fall, rumors of Wi-Fi capability were greatly exaggerated – August 10, 2006
Microsoft to spend hundreds of millions, several years on Zune trying to catch Apple iPod+iTunes – July 27, 2006
Zune: Apple cannot lose. Microsoft cannot win. – July 26, 2006
This frightens me. Cause Dvorak is wrong about (almost) everything. Could he be wrong about Zune failure?
Nah.
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Welcome to the social….I mean loner
Disappointing device. However, should still inspire Apple to force high-end technology. The next iPod should blow us away!
iPod truly takes off now with airlines offering connectivity. Now that’s standard! When the airline industry adopts something, it’s here to stay.
Hello iPod!
Goodbye Zune!
(whatever zune means in french :D)!
It’s truly amazing just how horrible in every aspect the execution of this thing has been. I’m no business expert, but it seems to me this is what happens when you get too many MBA types and attorneys between a concept and the market.
Analyst: Apple will retailiate against Microsoft’s Xbox 360’s unauthorized iPod interoperability (did Apple drop this)?
there’s a amusing discussion of this over on the This Week in Tech Podcast, TWiT episode #76, “Too Zune?” http://www.twit.tv/76
Leo Laporte, Dvorak and several other guest take shots, including discussion of this very restrictive reviewer’s agreement, and more. have a listen.
Yikes! Dvorak says Zune will fail!
When has he EVER been right?
Reviewer’s kit? Reviewer’s kit? I don’t need no stinking reviewer’s kit! Seriously folks, even from 2,500 miles away the Zune looks hideous.
But wait, Vista is yet to be foisted upon the world. Another technical debacle from Microsoft will be coming soon to a store near you. You have been warned.
Or Engineers that don’t understand User Experience. I have seen it first hand with Sony, Microsoft and a several of others. Its crazy I know, but then watch Office Space and it will all make sense.
Dvorak predicted Apple would adopt Intel chips a year before it happened. Everyone called a lunatic at the time.
Wrong again Dvorak. Dead wrong. Here’s why:
I might be an old fuddy-duddy but Microsoft’s images of hip, energetic youngsters enjoying their Zune music players in television, print and Zune Marketplace software installation screens are pure gold. GOLD! This marketing campaign is not the work of nerds envisioning what “cool” and “with it” looks like. This is what “cool” and “with it” looks like. Microsoft gets it, and Apple doesn’t have a clue. More catch up for Apple I guess.
Welcome to the social my friends. Your potential. Our Passion.
Thank you, Microsoft!
“Microsoft should simply turn over all its marketing to the Xbox 360 folks—at least some of the people in that group have marketing skills,” John C. Dvorak reports for PC Magazine.
That’s funny, because the guy who oversees the Zune ALSO oversees the Xbox 360.
Can’t wait till Apple’s next-gen iPod comes out in a few months and completely obliterates this thing forever. MS has already said that the Zune hardware will only be updated once a year!
Ha, Ha Ha! (Ho, Ho, Ho for Apple!)
“How about referring to it as a “piece of crap?” Ooops. No can do.”
Gold!
Magic word: Surface, as in this thing will hardly scratch the surface of iPod
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“At the signpost up ahead…
“MS locked this door with the key of no imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of limited sight, a dimension of points. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and little substance, of brown things and borrowed ideas. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zune. “
My Zune pissed its pants when it heard this.
I was just at (4:00PM local time they open their doors at 9AM) the local Circuit City to pick up a copy of The Da Vinci Code. They had a big “ZUNE Coming Zune” banner with an add-on “ZUNE NOW IN STOCK!” attached outside outside the store and similar posters on the doors and windows.
I asked the clerks how many Zune’s they had sold… the check out clerk said “What’s a Zune?” and the store manager, walking by, said “So far we haven’t sold even one!”
Meanwhile, a couple of store employees were putting up hanging banners in the middle of the store that said “MP3 City” and “iPod Headquarters!”
I have no idea who is marketing this device within the company
A combination of Steve “Dance Monkey” Ballmer, and mid-level bore drones armed with PowerPoint.
“If anything is doomed to failure, it’s Microsoft’s Zune”
Hell is freezing over when JD disses something from MS. Wonder if he’ll get any future “reviewer’s kits”…
But hey! Good ole CNet gave it an 8.0!
I keep reading these comments by ‘Zune Tang,’ and I can’t help but chuckle. Microsoft is really coming off as a bunch of nerds trying to be hip or groovy or whatever. I’m in college right now. I have yet to meet a single person who knows what the Zune is (before I tell them), and nobody I’ve shown pictures to would even consider buying one. As for their ‘cool’ ads, they suck. The Zune is not even remotely cool. The term ‘squirt’ is not even remotely cool. The color brown is not even remotely cool. Trying to look cool by sticking up for the failure known as Zune is not even remotely cool. I sure hope Microsoft wasn’t trying to sell the Zune to the college age group.
MDN Magic Word: feel – I can’t help but feel sorry for Microsoft.
Oh no! Dvorak is the kiss of death of life–
Whenever he thinks a product will FAIL, it inevitably SUCCEEDS.
Well, that’s been my experience with Dvorak, his other statements notwithstanding…
Reminds me of when Wile E. Coyote would think he was about to catch up with Roadrunner and then “beep beep” and dust for miles.
Set a very low standard and failed to reach it!
Can Microsoft weather this swelling gale of derision? Can the dim ember of Microsoft originality shine through the deepening gloom of doom and despair? Can Zune rise from beneath the crushing weight of negative reviews?
Or will the merciless fingers of repeated re-starts choke the life out of the Zune party? Is Microsoft’s iPod killer just a social misfit in the world of digital coolness and delight, left to aimlessly wander the desloate vista in search of another sorrowful sidekick? Is this be the winter of Redmond’s discontent as boxes of Zunes collect dust and iPods sing with holiday cheer?
OH SNAP!!!
Dvorak… we’ve had our differences in the past, but some days, I could kiss you.
-c
MW: ‘values’ (continue to fall. Soon, Zunes in the bottom of cereal boxes)
“When broadcaster Leo Laporte of KFI and the TWIT podcast (of which I am a cast member) asked Microsoft for a Zune to review for an appearance on the Today show, he got the Zune reviewer’s agreement and immediately passed it on to everyone, myself included.”
GO LEO!!!
I MISS TSS!!!
I STILL LOVE YOU!!!
-c
MW: ‘heavy’ (handed marketing tactics could save it… maybe not)
The hits just KEEP COMING!!!!
“First of all, how else would you refer to it? No puns I guess, such as PU-une. How about referring to it as a “piece of crap?” Ooops. No can do.”
Stop it, John, I am SERIOUSLY gonna die. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
-c
MW: ‘bed’ (made, time to lie)
I get it, people who think they are cool, are WANNABE’s!
everybody poops… The zune just happens to be what microsofts looks like.
Your ATTENTION PLEASE!!!!!
It just keeps getting BETTER!!!!
-c
MW: ‘court’ (is in. Guilty)
swordmaker reported on sales at his local circuit city,
does anyone else have any info on 1st day sales in their home town???
Did it even launch? I haven’t heard or seen f*ck all today about this where I live. This is a real head scratcher. Seriously. What in the hell was (is?) the point of this thing? I also believe the fact that Dvorak is dissing a MS product cancels out his miraculous ability to be clueless and useless. It’s like evil turned in upon itself.
A New York Times article Monday outlining the background and thinking (?) behind the Zune spoke of 230 people – that’s TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY – working on this project, not to mention “hundreds of millions” in funding. And *THIS* is what they come up with? How many did Apple assign to the iPod project… few dozen maybe? Obviously someone is doing something right, and it isn’t Microsoft.
” “This means in the process of reviewing, you cannot show the device to your friends, your wife or kids, to get an opinion.”
This is to more acurately simulate the user experience. You and you alone willl have a Zune.
This is what “cool” and “with it” looks like…
Dirty fingernails and all — yes, the big two page ad in Rolling Stone has that great ad agency touch, suggesting that zuning songs is akin to a kind of Frat beer-bash sexuality: “…spread it around.”
But the 2-page inside cover ad (again in Rolling Stone) with the little Shuffle clipped to a young woman’s jeans exudes a more refined stance — and actually shows someone using the product.
It all makes sense now!
What do you do if you are going to sell a product at a loss? You make a lousy product! That way no one buys it and you don’t loose as much money.
-Brilliant!-
As Dvorak mentioned, Bill Gates is slowly distancing himself from anything Microsoft does. He’s hanging around for another year or two to reap the rewards of the legions of blind who will buy Vista, or who need to buy new PCs preloaded with Vista, and the next gen Office suite, then he’s outta there.
He didn’t get to be a multi-billionaire by being stupid. He sees the trend, and knows the Titanic is sinking. The lifeboats are already leaving (upper management are jumping off left and right), and he’s just waiting for the golden lifeboat to come by and pick him up.
Honestly guys this is just Dvorak being his usual idiot self. He goes on and on about the legal non-disclosure language, which is just paranoid lawyer boilerplate. So MS has a paranoid legal department… who the f cares?
Seriously it has nothing to do with the device, software, user experience, consumer marketing anything.
And as much as I am unimpressed by MS or Zune, I’m even less impressed by Dvorak.
Actually, he’s so lame that I’m relieved he didn’t focus on the device. Had he shot the device down I’d be worried cuz he’s basically always wrong.
Rabid Dog: A broken clock is right twice a day…I’ll look at this Dvorak review as his twice daily on the money…
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just2me:
A broken analog clock is at best right twice a day. Without some objective standard to compare, how would you know when it was correct?
LOL!
This Zune fiasco is getting better by the day!
What all this highlights is that Microsoft ‘as a business’ is in serious trouble.
The company is far too big to work efficently, even with their billions of $ and 1000s of employees and expensive consultants they cannot create anything worthwhile.
I bet Bill Gates is bloody relieved not to be a full time employee now.
This will all lead to one thing – the company eventually going down, it may take 20 years but its happening.
There is only so long a company can make a loss on all it’s products before the gates are closed permanently.
Solar Flare:
The only people more ignorant and more significant than those thousands of individuals at Redmond are the hundreds of millions of folks that habitually and persistently buy Microsoft products.
Actually Macdailynews, it is fairly common among the videogame industry to sell hardware at a loss, given what the companies make from software and accesories purchases, it is a fairly decent business model that has proven sucessful (Sony has sold 100 million playstation 2’s, and made plenty of money from the brand even though they sell the console at a loss)
>”His accomplices also hide behind fake names, including carapi, monkeybutler, and lackawak, who was also banned by Digg for fraud. He quickly turned up again as lackawack2, 3, and is now somewhere around 6.” — from ChrissyOne’s link about the Digg abuser.
I wonder who the monkey is….
fletcher:
Just because *some companies do it doesn’t mean its right.
Nintendo is making money on every game cube sold now, and will make money on every wii sold.
all M$ needs to do now to Really compete with apple, is start making subsidized PC hardware. – too make their OS will still suck donkey dick.
It just became clear with this article…
MS wants Zune to fail… All along they have been interested in one thing only, agree to pay universal on a per player sold basis. That will amount to what, a couple of hundred dollars?
BUT now Universal with 20% of all the content on iTunes Store will demand payment for every iPod sold, and will probably ask other studios to do the same.
MS is probably betting that Universal will be more stubborn than Steve Jobs, forcing either 1) Apple to pay out the wazoo, or, 2) Universal will walk away from the iTunes Store. Whatever, its a win for MS. They probably don’t even want a share of the download business, they just want to see Apple fall. If they REALLY wanted to compete, they would have made Zune a better player, and tried to work with the PlayedForSure partners. With such a crappy product, campaign, and support its obvious that they don’t want to succeed in anything other than trashing iTunes/iPod
darknite you are an idiot!
Universal sees the Zune is a piece of shit and only allowed it’s library to be associated with that shit if MS agreed to pay them a buck per unit sold.
Universal sees the iPod as a potential customer for it’s music and it’s customer base is growing at over 100,000 units per day every day of the week. Apple is moving on to a mere two billion songs sold. Yeah, right darknite, Universal is going to walk away from THAT. Especially when you factor in their overhead for selling their music is a whopping ZERO! Oh, they’re gonna bitch and moan and cry but in the end they will swallow their kool-aid and go on being Steve’s bitch.
Count on it.
Freddy the Pig
Please, get real Universal is the biggest part of the RIAA, and they are so greedy they sue their customers. They would walk away. Not to say they wouldn’t come crawling back, but NEVER underestimate the greed of record companies.
Nice try, thanks for playing, shop early shop often, and have a nice day
Maybe Bill Gates’ philanthropic efforts are a cover to help him get his money out of MS stock before it tanks and without his withdrawals causing it to tank.
I don’t think this is true, but an idea. I definitely need to give more.