The latest iPod offerings from Apple are common features on The Shelf, so today when news broke about Microsoft launching three new models of its rival Zune player in an effort to enhance it’s competitivness with the iPod, this latest post started writing itself.
Due to be launched in mid November in the run up to the lucrative Christmas market, the new Zune is aimed not just at securing second spot in the market, but also aims to win customers from dominant rivals Apple. Currently the Zune holds only a 3% share of the market for portable digital players, selling 1.2 million units between the November (2006) release and June (2007).
On the surface the Zune upgrades include new 4GB and 8GB Flash-base Zune players with an 80GB model available, up from the 30GB. There is a new 3.2inch screen and the overall size of the unit has been reduced by 27%. The Zune software has also been rebuilt because the last version was hard to use and took too long to perform certain tasks. The new devices are also touch sensitive which allows the user to scroll through stored libraries.
Perhaps of more interest are the developments in digital rights management for the Zune player. For a long time iPod users have been frustrated by the DRM that iTunes uses. The Zune player looks to be using this to its advantage, and aims to increase its popularity and resulting market share by altering it stance on its own DRM policies. New Zune players now have relaxed rules for sharing songs between Zune players, allowing users to pass along music they got from someone else. Beating Apple to the punch Microsoft hope that social networking makes the Zune more appealing than the iPod.
The new Zune players the devices can also use their Wi-Fi connection to automatically synchronize music, photos, videos and audio clips with personal computers in homes that have a wireless network. Any music that is shared to friends via Wi-Fi, does however have DRM added, although the three day expiry that was in place has been removed.
With a new emphasis put on social networking and a relaxed stance towards DRM on Zune music, a new online community has been launched called Zune Social that allows users to get together and show what they are listening to, via Zune Cards. These Zune Cards automatically update to track what users are listening to, with other Zune users then able to listen to their friends Zune Cards and buy the tracks.
Zune Social is part of the Zune Marketplace, which has itself been upgraded. It has had over one million DRM free MP3 tracks added to its catalog from a number of labels including EMI. These tracks are not exclusive to Zune users, and are available even to iPod users who can buy the tracks and play them on an audio player of their choice. It is also worth pointing out that all of these update are also available to existing Zune players so exsisiting customers need not go out and buy the latest model to get the latest Zune features.
It will be interesting to see how the integration of social networking into the Zune player will affect its market share, and whether a committed iPod customer base will find that the integration of social networking features make the new Zune player more appealing.
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