Things Are Heating Up in the Portable Player Marketplace

Looking at the past few days, one could think that the only players in the portable media player market were Apple and Microsoft, after all, all the news are about Zune and the iPod. But that is not exactly true, and there are many other companies, and the landscape is changing.

Creative has launched a new media player that will compete against former partner Microsoft. The new Zen Vision W video, photo and music player, was released on Thursday, the same day as Microsoft released Zune. Furthermore, Creative has played up its support for Amazon's Unbox, which is in direct competition with Microsoft's Zune Marketplace, and their Zen device is the only officially supported portable player for the service. That's a rather strong partnership between Creative and Amazon, and it will be interesting to see Microsoft trying to push their product through Amazon's site.

The Zen Vision W comes in two models, one with 30GBs of storage, which can carry up to 120 hours of video, and the other 60GBs. The devices cost $300 and $400, respectively. Also, unlike Zune, Creative's device will be compatible with all the existing non-Apple movie and music services on the Internet. The Zune that was initially said to be priced at $299 is now facing pressure from both Apple and Creative in terms of pricing, integration and features.

It looks like the non-iPod market is turning in on itself, and while Microsoft is trying to work both sides of the street, it is facing fiercer competition from its former partners which it has chosen, to now also turn into competitors. No doubt, Creative will be soon following that lead and have a little talk with Microsoft about the interface they use in the Zune player and their patent on it.