Zune Thoughts: American Technology Research Analyst Not Impressed by Zune

"An analyst has said he's "frankly underwhelmed" by Microsoft's highly-hyped Zune media player, and considers the Apple iPod the "de facto standard" in the portable media market. American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu maintained a "buy" rating on shares of Apple Computer, which he considers to have the competitive advantage in the media player market. The Microsoft Zune is expected to launch later this year. "Microsoft had hinted of an all-new design from the ground up, but from our analysis, it appears that the Zune is essentially a repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat that has seen limited success," said Wu in a report."

This is definitely not the kind of press Microsoft wants to see before the product is even released. Frankly, why do they even bother showing the product to a guy like this? Someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea evidently, because if the analyst was impressed, he'd coming away touting Microsoft's "future success", would recommend Microsoft stock as a "buy", and the stock price would likely see a bump. Instead, we have the opposite effect. I'm still waiting to see more factual information about the Zune myself, but this article certainly doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Then again, this guy might know as much about digital media players as I do about the stock market (as in, not much at all).