Zune "Not the Endgame?"

Hmm.  I always thought that that the point of designing, manufacturing, marketing, and selling any product, was to well, sell the err, product, right?  Well, apparently I missed that day in business school, because that may not always be the case. 

Take the Zune for example.  One analysis is viewing the physical Zune player as merely a way for Microsoft to promote their sales of entertainment via the Zune Marketplace.  Their analysis focuses on how Microsoft is focusing on promoting their latest Zune software rather than the player itself.  This also has implications on where content will come from for both the Xbox platform, and Windows Media Player.

While it brings up an interesting point, I think we should remember that it took quite a while before folks were loading up their iPods from the iTunes store.  In other words, the player sales need to come first before the content sales.  IMHO, Microsoft should focus on moving the Zune units first, and then, now that the Zune Marketplace is offering such an enticing deal, I have no doubt that the sales will follow.

Comments

[ACE]

Couldn't agree more Jonas. While MS's focus this year has been on software features, which are awesome in and of themselves, it still leaves the hardware standing still (I consider the 3.0 hardware update a 2.5 update, really). The really need to bring a lustful piece of hardware to market to really fully realize their achievements in services.

[travis]

as a zune owner from the beginning, i think MS is doing fairly well. they have brought in most of the changes that users have asked for, not left out owners of older zune hardware, and the software has finally gotten to a point that I am using it as my only media player. keep up the good work MS!

[Aaron]

I really feel like the Zune software has been designed as a test, a rather painful test, but with 3.1 they may be getting there. I found it very curious that the Zune was updated the same day as the XBox. Leading one to consider that there will eventually be a tie in with the Zune software and the XBox and Marketplace. Clearly this is speculation on my part, but I think that this will eventually lead to Windows Mobile as well. The big picture being that when you buy on one system you can carry it over to others. Just a thought, but it makes a lot of sense.