Monday, April 9, 2007
Back in the Saddle: Here's a Zune News Round-up
Posted by Jason Dunn in "Zune Talk" @ 09:08 PM
Ever since going to CTIA to cover the show for Microsoft, I've been trying to get caught up on email - and building a new computer and reviewing it all in a few days only served to slow me down. At any rate, I'm back in the saddle again (to quote a great Aerosmith song), and here's some of the latest news on the Zune front from the past week:
- The Pink Zune is Official: we knew this was coming, but Microsoft has confirmed that the light pink Zune is official and they're only going to make 100,000 of them. Here's what it looks like.
- The "Watermelon Red" Zune is Unofficial: There have been rumours of a "vibrant" coloured Zune coming out, and it seems that colour is a vibrant red. People were convinced it was going to be an orange Zune, but I had a hunch that wasn't it. There are also rumours about the red Zune coming pre-loaded with sports content - an interesting twist.
- EMI Music on Zune Marketplace Will Be DRM-Free: Once EMI announced they'd start selling music via iTunes without DRM, it was a short leap of logic to realize that this would be coming to other music stores. That means that, likely within the next month or two, we'll see the Zune Marketplace start to offer DRM-free music from EMI. It would be useful if the Zune Marketplace could sort by record label so we could see all the EMI tracks in one location, but that might be too much to ask. Will they be 256 kbps AAC files just like iTunes? Quite possibly. How much will they be? Regular songs are 79 points right now - so will they be 99 points? If you don't want to wait you can go to iTunes today and buy the non-DRM music in AAC format and put it on your Zune. Has anyone tried this yet?
- Microsoft is Pondering Free Zune with Subscription Program: This is one of those small comments that has been blown out of proportion. Jason Reindorp, Microsoft's Zune marketing director, was "thinking aloud" and saying that the Zune team is exploring all options. Through the "magic" of the Internet, that turned into a flurry of "Microsoft to Give Away Zunes for Free" stories. This isn't a new idea - Napster started doing this last year, and when you consider the way prices on Flash memory have completely fallen into the toilet, the timing is certainly right for Microsoft to take this step. But are they ready for it? The first generation Zune still has so many problems, and is lacking so many features, that one has to wonder if it makes sense to launch new distribution business models before getting the basics down.
