14 DAY TRIAL // Apple' iPod has crushed Microsoft's Zune. In the digital media player arena, Zune is restricted to the newcomers corner while the iPod has taken center stage. While Microsoft is content with the modest goals it has set out for Zune, and with the equally modest performances of the device, the statistics paint an entirely different picture. Zune has failed to be the iPod killer it was planned to be. And accordingly, Microsoft - a company with an exclusive No.1 politics - has to fill up on the crumbs from Apple's table.
Just to be on the safe side, the Redmond Company announced from the get go that it planned to welcome approximately 1 million customers to the social by the summer of 2007. In this context, modest is an understatement, and mediocre just as well. Reports of firmware problems, the Zune Marketplace lacking the magic of the iTunes and the Microsoft shadow have not managed to appeal to customers as Apple did. Zune hit the shelves on November 14, 2006. Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, revealed that three months short of a year, Zune sales passed the 1 million milestone.
But 1 million shipped Zune devices in nine months fails to even come close to the market performances delivered by Apple's iPod. In January, February and March 2007, Apple shipped 10,549,000 iPods, representing 24% growth compared to the same quarter from the previous year.
"We're still about nine months into having Zune in the marketplace. We're very pleased with the progress. We've sold a little over a million Zunes. In the category we're in, the hard-disk-based category, we've got about 10 percent market share. It's a good start," Bach revealed to Zune-Online. It's not an overwhelming start. I'm not going to pretend it's some gigantic move. As we look to the future, you're certainly going to see us continue to invest in that category. We don't enter things like that lightly. There will be new things down the path (in the fall). We just came out with a special edition pink Zune and a watermelon-colored Zune, which are the personal favorites with my kids."