News
Episode 5 The Trouble With Zunes
11/07/2008 11:57 AM Filed in: Zune IssuesAudio
Podcasts
When the generation 3
Zune firmware, client and Marketplace were released
Devin Leonard issued a posting on the Fortune Web
claiming to have insight into what he refers to as
The Trouble With Zunes. His article is instructive in
the statistics that define Microsoft's penetration in
the portable player market as well as the
subscription music space.
The numbers are not encouraging. He sites data from Piper Jaffray estimating the Zune has a 3 % share of the player market and only 15 % of the subscription music market. Rhapsody supposedly owns a 45% majority share of the rent as you go market place.
One of the reasons sited for the Zunes’ poor showing is they offers no compelling reason for iPod customers to switch or for the undecided to chose the Zune over competing devices. As someone with hands on experience with many different portable media players, I find the Zune a compelling alternative and yet missing several features and services that are crucial to gaining market share.
We add blue tooth support to our generation four wish list. The Ibiza Rhapsody player supports both WiFi access to our Rhapsody account as well as bluetooth support for wireless earphones and speakers. Recently we began using the Ibiza with an inexpensive Insignia bluetooth headset and are quickly becoming spoiled by the freedom it offers.The obvious advantage to bluetooth listening is the elimination of the wires that far too often get entangled or caught on something leading to the player being yanked out of hand or holster and testing its resistance to trauma as it falls to the floor.
We underestimated the impact bluetooth would have and find ourselves using the Ibiza for music and podcasts more and more. The Zune still has the advantage of functioning as a portable video recorder and ironically one of the better players for listening to audio books but has taken a back seat to our Ibiza when on the road.
We are preparing a full comparison between the Zune and Ibiza on the ZuneNetNews web site. Even though the Zune now leads the Ibiza in important hardware and software features the Rhapsody subscription service continues to offer a far richer catalogue of music than we find in the Zune Market Place. We hope the Zune team working to close this gap as well as offer a working means to add new podcast series to the netcast directory.
The numbers are not encouraging. He sites data from Piper Jaffray estimating the Zune has a 3 % share of the player market and only 15 % of the subscription music market. Rhapsody supposedly owns a 45% majority share of the rent as you go market place.
One of the reasons sited for the Zunes’ poor showing is they offers no compelling reason for iPod customers to switch or for the undecided to chose the Zune over competing devices. As someone with hands on experience with many different portable media players, I find the Zune a compelling alternative and yet missing several features and services that are crucial to gaining market share.
We add blue tooth support to our generation four wish list. The Ibiza Rhapsody player supports both WiFi access to our Rhapsody account as well as bluetooth support for wireless earphones and speakers. Recently we began using the Ibiza with an inexpensive Insignia bluetooth headset and are quickly becoming spoiled by the freedom it offers.The obvious advantage to bluetooth listening is the elimination of the wires that far too often get entangled or caught on something leading to the player being yanked out of hand or holster and testing its resistance to trauma as it falls to the floor.
We underestimated the impact bluetooth would have and find ourselves using the Ibiza for music and podcasts more and more. The Zune still has the advantage of functioning as a portable video recorder and ironically one of the better players for listening to audio books but has taken a back seat to our Ibiza when on the road.
We are preparing a full comparison between the Zune and Ibiza on the ZuneNetNews web site. Even though the Zune now leads the Ibiza in important hardware and software features the Rhapsody subscription service continues to offer a far richer catalogue of music than we find in the Zune Market Place. We hope the Zune team working to close this gap as well as offer a working means to add new podcast series to the netcast directory.
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