Microsoft calls time on Zune media player hardware
Even Nokia wouldn't want it
Microsoft is to pull the plug on its Zune line of media players, it has been claimed. The software giant won't be introducing any new models, insists an insider.
If the unnamed mole cited by Bloomberg proves to be correct, we won't be surprised.
The media player market is now in decline, and Zune was never a major part of it, even in the US, the country in which Microsoft first released the platform. You can now buy them now in Canada too, apparently.
Folk use their phones as media players these days, which makes Microsoft's decision to base its smartphone platform on Zune's system software all the more sensible. Indeed, said the source, MS' Zune efforts, such as they are, will be retargeted at Windows Phone 7.
If only on the basis of persuading Nokia to buy into WinPho 7, the phone OS will do more for Microsoft's bank balance than Zune alone ever would have.
Microsoft hasn't revised the Zune hardware since 2009. ®
COMMENTS
Am I the only dinosaur....
...who wants a media player that has sufficient capacity to hold my entire music collection, which simply will not fit on an SD card? I don't have the time to keep changing the contents of a lower-capacity storage card so I can stick it into my phone and use that. Life's too short. My ipod classic lasts AGES between charges where the phone is nowehere near as good if you use it as a pmp. Sadly there seems to be no viable alternative and I guess that will continue until someone brings out a small, high-capacity, low power consumption alternative to the hard disc.
Wow
Coming up after the break: Sinclair pulls plug on QL, C5 also at risk.
tragic
I feel sorry for the Zune fans who are getting left behind by MS.
all three of them...
Zune was a mixed bag...
I remember when the Zune first came out and everyone at Microsoft was saying "this will be the iPod killer". Hmm. I guess it didn't work out quite like they thought it would.
In my role as a freelance computer serviceperson, I never even saw that many Zune players in use. People were using iPods or Sandisk players of some kind. Whenever I asked, many of the comments about Zune players were negative. Most people complained that the hardware was unreliable/fragile and technical support was not all that great. For me, it was a non-starter. An iPod mini and iTunes work on Windows 2000* while Zune's software claimed not to. (I have no idea if the Zune appeared as a conventional USB mass storage device or if it required the software.)
I also remember the Zune HD getting some pretty good reviews, and I did like the way it was designed. I've never seen one of those in the wild, but maybe I'll pick one up on the cheap and see what I think of it.
* yes, I'm going to beat the drum on that for a while. What can I say? It works relentlessly and it's paid for. And it might just be the best release of Windows that Microsoft ever managed to produce.
1 down 3 to go. What, brain cells?
Microsoft don't make phones. They make phone software.
Kinect, yes, that piece of shit. The fastest selling electronics product ever. That hasn't been welcomed with red rings of death like early Xbox 360s or an inability to stay on calls like iPhone 4.
Xbox, yeah, your post might have been valid... ... in 2006.
