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4 Likely Causes of Microsoft Zune Death

image from www.financebehavior.co.uk As if the cult of Apple didn't already have enough reasons to bond, the rumored demise of Microsoft's Zune has united them in a Christmas caroling fashion. Each member has their own theory on why the Zune got killed and they're singing it as loudly as they can. Beneath the seabed of headlines, however, it's clear that the Apple cult shares a few common theories.

1) The Zune was designed to appease the major labels. Richard Menta at the MP3 Newswire argues that the number one thing that killed the Zune is that it was designed to pacify major label executives and didn't focus nearly enough on pleasing the consumer. Microsoft created a compelling Zune-to-Zune sharing feature for the device, but due to concerns of "an open-air bazaar" of music piracy, Menta argues, it handicapped the feature, making it less appealing.

2) The death of the standalone music player. Tim Gideon at PCMag observes that the iPod captured and dominated the standalone music player market and many other competitors have since shifted their focus to the next big thing, i.e. tablets and phones. The MP3 player revolution is over. It happened.

Apple has, without a doubt, won the war, and has now shifted its attention to iPhones and iPads. Consumers too appear to be jostling towards multipurpose devices. The fact that a device only plays music isn't a selling point anymore.

No one wants five tech toys when they could have just one or two.

 3) The marketing of Zune and its culture failed. Matt Kiebus at Death & Taxes makes the great point that Microsoft failed to create a culture to embed the Zune in; it aimed to position the Zuners against the Pod people, but the brown shell became a joke while the white earbuds morphed into a cultural statement.

Matt Rosoff at SFGate adds that the iPod launched strong, but the Zune didn't; it "offered very little over the iPod." Zune had the crippled sharing add-on. That's all.

According to Joe Wilcox at Beta News, "Zune never got the marketing support needed to establish the brand as viable alternative to iPod/iTunes." Microsoft did some ads, he says, but "not consistently or persistently enough" to establish the brand. Meanwhile, Apple's silhouette people became as infamous as the iPod.

4) An executive shakeup happened at Microsoft. Lastly, Nicholas Kolakowski at eWeek reveals that the Zune hardware "may also have found itself something of an orphan after Microsoft's massive corporate upheaval in 2010, which saw the departure of the executives who had brought the project to life, and a reorientation of the company's approach to consumer products." Kolakowski continues to say that part of the refocus may have "involved killing the Zune hardware, while keeping the software component — and associated media store — as a part of the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem." In other words, the Zune's downfall may have stemmed from a shake up in the Microsoft's guard too.

Final Thoughts

Dave McLauchlan, a Senior Business Development Manager for Zune, wrote in a statement that the death of the Zune is greatly exaggerated and that his followers shouldn't trust any news stories they read until it comes directly from Microsoft.

"To be 100% clear – NO information about our future plans, no matter what the incarnation, has been shared. Until then treat with healthy skepticism anything you read," McLauchlan says. So, there you have it. Take this post with a grain of salt. Microsoft is making a zPhone, therefore, the Zune isn't dead. It will live on.

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5 Comments

  1. Zune’s not dead…has it been decimated sales-wise? Sure. But I personally love my HD. Beautiful interface, great sound quality, compact…I’m not really looking for anything else.
    I also think mp3 players will continue to be relevant. There will always be people like myself who want a stable place for their entire music libraries that’s not dependent on “the cloud,” an entity that no matter how revolutionary is still subject to the whims of a wireless network.

  2. I agree with Joe. I think there are more of us out here that still want the mp3 player as home base for music. I do however have a Zune and one point or another cited 3 of these 4 reasons to possibly being why there were no upgrades after the last attempt(The smaller nano like Zune that came out about a year or so ago)

  3. Zune was dead long ago. I like my Zune, but you can’t connect it to anything. No adapters to connect it to car stereos, home player units – if you want to use it you have to use earphones. And the software sucks (not that iTunes is much better). And a oh-so-fashionable square box – come on. MS never backed it. They were just hoping to get a toe-hold on the market before they threw their might behind it and it never caught on. MS marketing is pitiful and their staff has no foresight. They are reactionary, never revolutionary. In the meantime, I think I’ll pick up another discounted unit while their still available. I’ld rather have an Ipod (plenty of devices to connect to – even my car has an ipod adapter on the radio), but the Zunes are so much cheaper.

  4. Fairly insightful publish. Never ever thought that it was this straightforward in the end. I had invested a good offer of my time in search of people to reveal this issue obviously and you’re the one one which ever before did that. Kudos to you!

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