Five years later, Zune's troubled journey comes to an end

[the_leander]

As of today, Zunes are no longer corporeal beings, Microsoft announced on zune.net. After five years of struggling uphill against a flood of Apple’s iPod products, Zune hardware is being discontinued, although the brand name will live on as the name of Microsoft’s media services.

Read on.

My only surprise is that it lasted this long.

 

[faethor]

I've had an original poop brown Zune and have a ZuneHD. Great devices. Though the market is drying up for dedicated application devices. Apples iPod sales peaked in 08.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg

This makes sense. The day of the smartphone and mobile computing means a single device can do it all. Phones will do ever increasing stuff. I think stand along GPS and low cost digital cameras are going to meet a similar fate. Apple's dominance means it makes sense for them to still make iPods but they're eating their own market with the iPhone.

 

[Glaucus]

I read somewhere recently that Apple is contemplating axing the iPod (not sure if that includes the iTouch). So I guess no surprise. But Samsung is still making new Android based media players that look like a phone but aren't phones (think of them as mini-android tablets).

But ya, I liked the Zune as well. We still have a red Zune 80 gig which we use all the time. I think MS could have pushed that a lot more if they wanted but I think they were never that interested in the market.

 

[faethor]

Zune UnDead?
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=22939

Could the loss of Steve Jobs prompted them to resurrect the Zune?

 

[Glaucus]

Ya, saw that yesterday on Ars. Weird. The Zune is now a Zombie! It's the Zunbie!

 

[faethor]

The Zune site still allows ZuneHD shopping. So perhaps they have stock still to get rid of? Perhaps I should buy a backup.

Man I hate iTunes. Though you think I should love it's interface has the bad 1990 UI flair.

 

[Glaucus]

I don't own a media player (it's my GF who ones the 80GB model, but when ever I get the chance I stuff as much non-crap music onto it as possible ). I would have liked the Zune but it's about as restricted as the iPods (my idea of a media player looks like a USB drive when connected to a PC via USB and doesn't require special software to sync). For that reason, the only media players that interest me these days are the Android based one.

 

[faethor]

I had a MP3 player that was basically as you describe, no special software. If I recall someone even made it work with the Amiga. If memory serves I think DRM purchased the company. iPod took off and Denon/Marantz never did anything with the technology.

 

[faethor]

This out from Apple -- On the 10th year of the iPod they own 70% of the US market and 50% of the world. Shipments are down from 9.1M in the Q3 2010 to 6.6M in Q3 2011. ... Not from Apple but sales have been falling since 2008.

Because they were the leader in sales they can hold on longer in the marketplace. Though the iPhone is definitely eating Apple's own market.