New Zunes from Microsoft - First Take

Michael Gartenberg | October 03, 2007, 08:35 AM

Lots of news today from the Zune team in Microsoft so let's run it all down. First, it looks like there's going to be two hard drive and two flash based models. The hard drives will come in at 30 and 80gb and the new flash devices in 4 and 8 capacities. Prices points are competitive with what the competition is offering (more importantly they're the same in the flash category where Apple sells the most units). Updated firmware and UI changes make things move and flow nice and smooth (although the UI experience is mostly the same which is a good thing). Likewise, older Zunes will get the updated firmware as well and be brought up to date. There's also support for podcasts in the Zune player (which really looks new and not WMP with a brown coat of paint).

New features include slightly friendlier sharing among Zune to Zune (although still not in line with what consumers think about when they talk about sharing files) and WiFi sync to the desktop. Overall, not bad although I still don't get the WiFi sync thing. Most folks music libraries don't change all that much and don't need to be synced on a regular basis, with one exception. That is podcasts and those could easily be updated directly over WiFi, it's totally odd to me that you can't do that directly to the device. (Apple doesn't allow it either on either the iPod Touch or the iPhone). One would think with WiFi in the device, there could be more functionality added that could be game changing.

The devices themselves are quite nice and map well into the sweet spot for capacity. While the hard drive models aren't boasting the largest capacities, that's not likely to matter as given there's a lack of legal video content from Microsoft (in the guise of TV shows and movies), capacities won't be strained. The new 80gb unit is nicely slimmed down and the new flash players are quite slim and compete favorably with the Nano (and in fact have nice matte finish backs and glass screens so they're less likely to smudge and scratch).

Bottom line, Zune 2 is a nice complete offering from Microsoft but not one that changes the game dramatically relative to what the market leader is offering. Microsoft is looking to position themselves as the iPod alternative and in that regard, they're certainly telling a credible story, the real question is the market really looking for an alternative? It will likely require a good marketing and messaging story to go along with the these products for them to gain traction in the marketplace and find places to be where Apple is not.