Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

First, some background on this problem. Here's what I said in my analysis of the iPod announcements:

"iTunes is in 23 countries. The Zune Marketplace is in one. Microsoft's US-centric approach with the Zune is maddening...I thought there was some light at the end of the tunnel when they launched the Zune in Canada last year, but we never got the Zune Marketplace here, and now the devices being sold here are being killed off. "Disaster" is a good word for how well the Zune launch went in Canada. Between the Zune HD being US-only at launch, and all of the IP-based geographic blocking madness that the Zune software and Web site does, it's like the Zune team is doing everything they can to alienate everyone in the world outside the US."

In the resulting discussion from the post, the issue of this US-centric approach to the Zune was brought up several times, and I floated this theory:

"Apple was the first company to negotiate big, international music distribution deals, and way back then most of the music labels probably though Apple would fail, or at best only be mildly successful. So they said "Sure, 99 cents sounds fine as long as the bit rate sucks." Fast-forward, and iTunes is massively successful. We've watched as the record labels pressured Apple for variable pricing year after year, trying to re-assert control over their music. They finally got it. The labels don't like all the power that Apple has, so here's my theory: they're making it very hard, if not impossible, for the Zune guys to get the same sort of deal that Apple has. They're trying to exert control over the Zune deal in a way they wish they could have done with the Apple deal years ago.

Witness the $1 that Universal demanded Microsoft pay them for every Zune sold. We're talking POWER STRUGGLE here people. Maybe that's one reason why Microsoft can't accomplish now what Apple did years ago - the record labels are more aware of what they want to control.

Second reason? Maybe Microsoft feels that the Zune Pass is SO important that they can't/won't launch Zune Marketplace without it. It's quite integral to the Zune experience - many new Zune features rely on the customer having a Zune Pass - so maybe Microsoft isn't launching in new markets unless that market includes the Zune Pass. I think this is a bit silly - not everyone wants a Zune Pass - but maybe it's another reason? These are just my theories." Read more...

"Up until now, the portable media player and its online iTunes Store equivalent, Zune Marketplace, have only been available in the US. From early Autumn, however, a revised service, Zune Video, will be available on Xbox Live in the US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Spain (with more countries coming aboard later). Xbox 360 owners in these territories will be able to go online and access video content and play it via their console. A variety of access options will be available, including instant streaming, download to rent and download to own. However, no Zune portable music players will be launched outside of the US - at least not yet. This is about the online service only."

It's still fairly difficult to determine what Microsoft's strategy around an international release will be. So far they've been tight-lipped about their specific plans with regards to launching the Zune services outside of North America or Western Europe, and even the Zune HD doesn't look like it'll make it outside of the US. This seems like a poor strategy, and one I really hope they fix before the HD launches in the fall.

A keen-eyed Zune Thoughts reader noticed something when he visited Zune.net, the official Microsoft Zune site: rather than resolving to www.zune.net like it used to do, it now resolves to www.zune.net/en-US/. The en-US is Microsoft's method of language coding indicating that it's the English USA site - and that can only mean one thing: they're inching closer to international releases of the product in localized languages. How soon are we talking here? It's hard to say, but having work with Microsoft over the years I will say that they're known more for last-minute execution rather than being months ahead of schedule - so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a summer release of the Zune in one or more markets.