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Microsoft’s Zune Delivers Connected Music and Entertainment Experience:
Marking the next big milestone for its Connected Entertainment vision, Microsoft Corp. today unveiled details of the first products to be released under its Zune™ brand. Designed around the principles of sharing, discovery and community, Zune will create new ways for consumers to connect and share entertainment experiences. The Zune experience centers around connection — connection to your library, connection to friends, connection to community and connection to other devices.
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Available this holiday season in the United States, Zune includes a 30GB digital media player, the Zune Marketplace music service and a foundation for an online community that will enable music fans to discover new music. The Zune device features wireless technology, a built-in FM tuner and a bright, 3-inch screen that allows users to not only show off music, pictures and video, but also to customize the experience with personal pictures or themes to truly make the device their own. Zune comes in three colors: black, brown and white.Every Zune device creates an opportunity for connection. Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing lets consumers spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends between Zune devices. Listen to the full track of any song you receive up to three times over three days. If you like a song you hear and want to buy it, you can flag it right on your device and easily purchase it from the Zune Marketplace.
Zune makes it easy to find music you love — whether it’s songs in your existing library or new music from the Zune Marketplace. Easily import your existing music, pictures and videos in many popular formats and browse millions of songs on Zune Marketplace, where you can choose to purchase tracks individually or to buy a Zune Pass subscription to download as many songs as you want for a flat fee.
To get started with great music and videos out of the box, every Zune device is preloaded with content from record labels such as DTS, EMI Music’s Astralwerks Records and Virgin Records, Ninja Tune, Playlouderecordings, Quango Music Group, Sub Pop Records, and V2/Artemis Records.
There’s also a list of three Microsoft accessory packs for car, home, and travel and the promise of more accessories from third party manufacturing partners.
Frankly, this seems anticlimactic in that it merely confirms the existing buzz and there’s nothing on pricing of hardware or content, but at last there’s an explanation of the wireless sharing feature. More details at the Zune Virtual Pressroom.
Update: My gosh, the box is brown – since the link isn’t working, scroll to the bottom here.
Update 2: Microsoft’s Cesar Menendez has more including a list of bloggers that got a special Zune preview and will be providing reviews today.
Update 3: Movie downloads and a Zune phone are coming later.
There’s a Zune interface video here and Paul Thurrott has some photo galleries.
You can import MP3 and Windows Media files, but “Rumors that the company would pay to replace a user’s iTunes store purchases with Zune-compatible tracks are not true, Microsoft said Thursday. “ You can transfer CD tracks ripped to iTunes (i.e. AAC format) however.
As for the sharing feature:
“I made a song. I own it. How come, when I wirelessly send it to a girl I want to impress, the song has 3 days/3 plays?” Good question. There currently isn’t a way to sniff out what you are sending, so we wrap it all up in DRM. We can’t tell if you are sending a song from a known band or your own home recording so we default to the safety of encoding.
Engadget interviews Microsoft CVP J. Allard who is running the Zune effort. Excerpt:
Other people just a want a system that’s end-to-end — all compatible out of the gate — and that’s what Zune does. Zune says there is no choice; you get a Zune device, you hook it up to the Zune service, and it just works.
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We’ve also found that there’s a category of customers that say, “Give me a brand experience, advertise it to me on television; I want to be part of the digital music revolution, and that solution [PlaysForSure] doesn’t work for me.” So they’re two complementary solutions — not everyones gonna want Zune and not everyone’s gonna want PlaysForSure. They’re different paths there, and we’re okay with both of them.
“We will not be undercut by Apple on price,” Matt Dublier, a Microsoft Zune product manager, told internetnews.com.
Microsoft’s comingzune.com viral marketing website has augmented the rabbit petters with flaming birds.
The latest rumor of a Microsoft iPod killer comes from Bloomberg News (via Todd Bishop):
Microsoft Corp. is planning to have a portable music and video player out by Christmas in a challenge to Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod.The digital player will have a wireless Internet connection, enabling users to download music without being linked to a computer, a feature the iPod doesn’t offer, according to people briefed on Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft’s plans.
Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, is seeking to take share from Apple’s iPod, which commands 77 percent of the $4 billion U.S. market for digital music players, based on figures from market researcher NPD Group Inc. Apple’s iTunes music store is used for 72 percent of music downloads. Microsoft has spent the past six years relying on partners to make players that use its software.
“None of Microsoft’s partners are doing the job that needs to be done,”‘ said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research in New York. “Apple has set it up so Apple music flows only to Apple devices. It locks Microsoft out and gives Apple more of a hold.”
Microsoft hired music industry executive Chris Stephenson, who is among Microsoft officials who have met with music and Hollywood companies to seek licenses for their content, according to industry officials with knowledge of the plans. J Allard, 37, a Microsoft Xbox vice president, is overseeing the development of the device, the people said.
There’s more by following the link, but this seems to be the same rumor as the one in June, only with more details. Once again, the important part is that Microsoft is apparently doing this themselves like the Xbox instead of “enabling” partners like the Personal Media Center and unsurprisingly has the Xbox crew in charge. I still wonder about the PMC partners left high and dry, though. One further observation: while the iPod lacks a wireless connection, the feature isn’t new to the space since MusicGremlin just rolled out a personal audio player with Wi-Fi Internet support as its primary virtue.
Todd Bishop at the Seattle P-I has the scoop:
Microsoft appears to have another mysterious hardware project up its sleeve.
Transmeta Corp., which specializes in microprocessors for hand-held computers and other machines, disclosed in a regulatory filing last week that it had “substantially completed” the work required under a series of “development services agreements” that it signed with Microsoft last year.
This much is clear: Microsoft says it’s not related to the tiny “Ultra Mobile PCs” unveiled earlier this month as part of its previously secret Origami Project.
But beyond that, neither company will say what Transmeta has been doing for Microsoft.
More but still scanty details by following the link. Bishop speculates that Microsoft might raise the curtain at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference which starts May 23 in Seattle.
Update: Bishop has more in his blog and points to a lengthy blog post by Dean Takahashi at The Mercury News. Excerpt:
In a bid to capture the huge audience for handheld entertainment gadgets, Microsoft is designing a product that combines video games, music and video in one handheld device, according to sources familiar with the project.
The Microsoft product would compete with Sony, Nintendo and Apple Computer’s products, including the iPod. And Microsoft has some of its most seasoned talent from the division that created its popular Xbox 360 working on it. Game executive J Allard leads the project, and its director is Greg Gibson, who was the system designer on the Xbox 360 video game console. Bryan Lee, the finance chief on the Xbox business, is leading the business side of the project.
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The approval of the project spurred the reorganization of the leadership team in the Home and Entertainment Division in December. In September, Robbie Bach, formerly the chief Xbox officer, was promoted to lead the Entertainment and Devices Group, which combined the Xbox with other mobile and entertainment businesses in one of four major product groups.Then in December, the jobs of the top Xbox executives were broadened so that they could manage all of the businesses related to the broader Entertainment and Devices Group, which included the Xbox business, mobile devices, MSN, music, and home productivity software. Allard, whose group designed the Xbox 360, was named to head “experience and design” for the entire group.
Sources say that the reason for the reorganization was to bring Allard, Lee, Gibson and all of the relevant businesses into a single group, which is supervised by Robbie Bach. The participation of these highly regarded Xbox veterans suggests that Microsoft is very serious about catching up with Sony’s PlayStation Portable handheld game player, Apple’s iPod music players, and Nintendo’s handheld GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS game players.
Curiouser and curiouser! We mentioned the reorganization here and the idea of Microsoft doing its own hardware in this market (a la Xbox) has been around for a while including a prominent mention by Steve Jobs in January.
Update 2: Microsoft officially says “no comment”.
Microsoft Corp. has split its entertainment and devices division into four businesses, the latest reorganization at the world’s largest software maker, according to a company e-mail to employees seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
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The chief of the entertainment and device unit, Robbie Bach, responsible for launching Microsoft’s Xbox video game business, told employees in a Wednesday e-mail he would turn his focus to longer-term strategy and partner relationships.
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Bach said Bryan Lee would take over as head of a new entertainment business charged with overseeing the company’s growing digital efforts in music, television and video.Other changes include broadening the role of Peter Moore as head of the interactive entertainment business, which includes both the Xbox and Games for Windows business, Bach said.
Tom Gibbons will remain in charge of the consumer productivity experiences unit, which includes the computer mouse and keyboards business. Pieter Knook remains chief of the mobile and embedded business and the communications sector sales force, the memo said.
Richard Waters at the Financial Times has more:
Another senior Xbox executive, J Allard, has been handed responsibility for the platform technology across the digital entertainment group, making him key in Microsoft’s attempt to create a technological foundation for its broader digital home vision.
Mr Allard first grabbed attention inside Microsoft a decade ago, when he wrote a memo to Bill Gates warning of the threat to the software company posed by the rise of the internet – a memo that helped prompt Mr Gates to revise Microsoft’s strategy.
Business Week recently profiled Robbie Bach and there are standard Microsoft bios: Robbie Bach, Bryan Lee, Peter Moore, Tom Gibbons, Pieter Knook, J Allard.
