Zune Overhaul Coming Up, Reportedly

Zune is not going to survive in its current form for much longer according to one unverified report. Of course, this is about the evolution of the Zune services, although it will certainly be extremely interesting to see how the major overhaul will impact the media player devices.

It appears that the next version of the Zune services will involve the transition of the offerings under new, more successful brands.

Microsoft is reportedly gearing up to transition and repackage Zune as offers for customers leveraging Windows Live and Xbox.

This is nothing but an unconfirmed rumor at this point in time, and end users should treat it with the maximum amount of skepticism possible.

However, at the same time it looks like an actual confirmation from the software giant will not take all that long, with additional details apparently planned to go public later this week.

“Zune next to be split into Xbox mobile, Xbox Live & Windows Live Zune on the 24th,” revealed @MSNerd via Live Side.

“And the Zune backend platform will become a "Nokia services on Azure" offering, with content from Netflix, Last.fm & Hulu among others.

“Zune Pass will slowly be merged with Xbox Live Gold, adding more 3rd-party content to the subscription (like ESPN).”

Microsoft’s direct competitor to iPod and iTunes, although having gained some traction with consumers, doesn’t appear to have made a dent in Apple’s dominance.

In more than one way, the technology world has changed dramatically since Zune devices went against iPods.

Looking at Apple’s offerings today, the iPod is no longer the threat that it was a few years ago. Instead, the company has managed to diversify its device offers and enjoy enormous success with iPhones and iPads.

If you ask me, while Zune devices had some relevance when they were initially launched, they make little or no sense at all at this point in time.

As far as I’m concerned, the core reason for their failure was the Redmond company’s persistent focus on just North America with both the services and the devices, when they should have opened them to the world.

Sure, the software giant is now offering Zune services for Windows Phone smartphones, but as long as they continue to be available on a limited number of countries, consumers will continue to be frustrated.

I for one hope that the revamping that Zune vNext will supposedly bring will also introduce the internationalization of services as well as additional content that they supply.