Why the Zune Will Fail

In order for Microsoft's Zune digital audio player to be successful, it needs to have a great deal of better specs or at the very least, better advertising than the Apple iPod. From what Microsoft's shown so far, they simply don't have that capability.

Market Presence

Apple's made hardware for a long time, but Microsoft specializes in software (which is, of course, ripped off from Apple in the first place). Apple easily has the most popular DAP (digital audio player) and music store in the world. Can Microsoft gain that much ground so quickly? It will require money, which of course Microsoft has; look at the battle they supported between their Xbox video game system and Sony's Playstation 2. Though the PS2 won in terms of units sold, the Xbox got a significant share of the domestic market by the end of the generation.

In this case, though, the hardware of the Zune and iPod is about the same as far as capabilities, and rather than one or two products in the field, there are hundreds. This is also a field with a lot of innovation; there's a new iPod every couple of months, and Apple has a flair for presentation that Microsoft...well, doesn't. In order to make a splash, Microsoft's got to do a lot more than they've done so far, and it's going to require a lot more money than they spent on the video game war.

Wireless Capabilities

Zune supports talk about the "revolutionary" new wireless capabilities of the device, but these aren't nearly as cool as the hype would imply. The basic idea is that users can share songs using their Zune players, but the digital rights management involved is pretty restrictive; songs can only be listened to three times, they self destruct after three days, and some songs won't be able to be shared. Besides, you'll have to find another Zune owner, which may not be that easy.

FM Radio

True, in order to get FM Radio on an iPod, you have to buy an adapter that costs about $40-50, and it comes without additional cost on the Zune. The Zune definitely has the one-up on the FM front. Trouble is, FM radio is awful, and part of the point of having a digital audio player is to avoid the dial. Microsoft is going to concentrate too much on the FM thing, but consumers just aren't going to be into that. It's like selling a DVD player that also plays VHS; cool, I can watch tapes, but what's the point if there's DVD?

Video Player

There's a misconception that the Zune will have a noticeably wider screen than the iPod, but this isn't true; in order for aspect ratios to remain the same, you'll basically be looking at the same image that you would on the iPod. Plus, the iPod already has an established, fairly low cost video and television store. There's even some speculation as to whether the Zune's video DRM will be more free than the iPod, and Steve Jobs controls Pixar and ABC, which of course Microsoft doesn't. This adds up to buyers choosing the iPod if they're looking for video on the go.

Colors

When the iPod does color (which is currently only for the nano), they pick some vibrant, cool shades. The Zune picked brown. Brown is not really a cool color for technology; it's a great color for your grandmother's pajamas, or poop, but a digital media player? Not so much. You have to wonder what they were thinking here.

Price

Both the Zune and the iPod will cost $249 for the same 30 gigabytes of memory, but the Apple has more of an established name and more style than the Zune. Microsoft is going into a market dominated by the iPod and trying to fight it with a product that has no really cool features (see above) and is priced the same; besides that, there are a few players on the market that are less expensive than the iPod and have more features, and they're getting crushed by Apple's fantastic advertising. Microsoft will have to beat that advertising to stand a chance-and it's unlikely that Microsoft can match the vogue style of Apple's shadow ads.

By the end of the battle, my prediction is that Apple will rise victorious in the world of digital audio players. They've lost one huge market to Microsoft, and they've learned their lesson; it won't happen again.