Yesterday, Microsoft launched Zune, it’s latest attempt at dethroning Apple’s iPod as the portable übergadget of the future. While it looks like a decent attempt, compared to the previous ones by Creative et al., it is probably a bit too late unless Microsoft manages to lure both studios and consumers to its media platform very zune (pun intended).
These past few days there’s been a torrent of announcements. First the anti-climatic iPod updates, with brighter screens and marginally larger hard drives, the return of the iPod Mini Nano in yet a thinner form and the opening of Apple’s long-awaited iTunes Movie Store (I guess iTunes is the only mistake Apple has made, as far as naming is concerned. Contrary to the iPod that has no immediate relation to music, iTunes is clearly becoming a misnomer, as more and more services are bundled into the online store). At the same time, the french magazine ’20 minutes’, has published a cover showing what it claims to be the new Apple iPhone, also a much-speculated product for the past few years. While many have dismissed the image as an earlier mockup design, 20 minutes stood by its claim that it is the real thing.
Whether the phone is real or not does not matter. It is known, ever since the first Motorola-iTunes phone came out a few years ago, that Apple is working on a mobile phone, and that it would not be bold to argue that it is going to be released soon. Apple is aggressively tackling both the movie industry, with which Steve Jobs has increasing ties, after the Pixar acquisition by Disney, and the ever increasing threat from the mutant mobile phones of 2006 and beyond that sport large storage capacities, and 3G music purchasing services, an immediate threat to the classic iPod of yesteryear.
The Zune from Microsoft is — in typical Microsoft fashion — a ripoff of the iPod in so many ways: the rectangular, angled design, the screen and controls and, to some extent, the interface. Microsoft has contracted the manufacturing to Toshiba, once an Apple partner in the iPod business (Toshiba manufactured the 1.8″ HDDs in the first few generations of the iPod). Toshiba’s reputation in terms of build quality is relatively high, both from its notebook computer products as well as its, now defunct, PDA business. But while the Zune sports some interesting and interesting features, such as the built-in 802.11g capability, allowing sharing of music and its quality is more or less expected to be high, the included DRM and Microsoft’s tight lipped stance on the accompanying store, prices, customer freedoms and — alas — the general ecosystem that might lead many of the existing Microsoft partners in its quest to conquer the online music market, seem to severely affect the world’s reaction to Zune’s launch.
It seems ironic, that a company that wagered its whole fortune in the open-hardware, closed-software paradigm, the same paradigm that saw the demise of IBM, Compaq and, indeed Apple among other proprietary hardware vendors, in the late 1980s and 1990s, has lost the first war on the media players through that same model, and is now adopting the Apple-esque proprietary model that arguably made the iPod such a hard contender to beat these past 5 years.
This war is not over, however. Apple’s position seems more fragile than ever: the movie industry has not yet decided whether it will jump onto Apple’s platform or not; the new iPods, while a decent upgrade, are nowhere close to the, now mythical, touchscreen iPod, rumoured for months that would offer a truly enjoyable video experience on a substantially larger screen. The iPhone is still nowhere to be seen and new offerings by many of the leading mobile phone companies seem impressive in their capabilities. It seems that for the short-term Apple is counting on its DRM-lock to prevent people from switching to other players and stores. Its hardware, while still arguably the best, in a market lacking cohesion and high-quality design, is not by any means revoluationary or innovative. In so many ways, the iPod business seems reminiscent of the Mac business of the late ’80s: Still the best around, but unless something is done fast, that’s not going to be the case for too much longer. Whether Microsoft manages to overcome the DRM obstacle, the few billion Fairplay-protected songs already bought off the iTMS, the design, ecosystem, momentum and de facto standard status of the iPod, whether through the much-rumoured offer of free downloads of existing iTunes songs for users of its Zune player, through superior hardware offerings or both remains to be seen.
What is definitely the case, however, is that Microsoft will have a much harder time dethroning Apple now than it would have two years ago. And Apple, while threatened by many, is still undoubtedly leading the industry in music and online video sales. Interesting times.
[Update: Ars Technica reports on Microsoft’s announcement that has a Zune phone slated for release soon after Zune. While this is an important step for Microsoft, I fear it does not remedy any of the points made above regarding Zune’s deficiencies.]
