In a vacuum, the decision to release Zune HD would have been brilliant.
However, it is very disconcerting to see people going gaga over this device IMO, shamelessly.
For me, I had made the decision that the real value of Microsoft’s innovation would be evident after St. Steve of Jobs revealed the new iPods.
I wasn’t wrong.
While a lot of folks knocked Apple for the apparent non-innovation in that market, they were wrong in doing so.
Listen, Apple has a dominant share of that market. In a product cycle where they are bereft of new ideas or innovation, which they were in this instant, just moving the needle would be enough. Especially if you have the same group of adoring cattle as Apple, and PR parrots such as Pogue and Mossberg.
However, if you are Microsoft, you cannot expect to achieve any success with a me-too product such as the Zune HD. You MUST move the crowd, as they say in the ‘hood.
In every instance where Microsoft has come behind to vanquish an established competitor, it has always done so with markedly superior products (Xbox 360, Microsoft Office, SQL Server), not products that were feature-common with the market share leader (Microsoft Money).
Didn’t Microsoft learn from the price drop on the Xbox 360 that taking the low (price) road, was a good thing on the road to total world domination?
Didn’t they?
Two things further rankle: the capacity of the new Zunes, and the lack of a comparable camera on the Zune HD.
Why didn’t Microsoft release the new Zune HDs at a 50% discount to existing Zunes? Why didn’t the chief competitive officer for the Zune or whatever that droid is called, commission competitive research that would have told him/her/it that introducing the Zune HD at capacities of 64GB and over, would have been a slam dunk in the mature PMP market?
Fire the Zune CCO!
Every cell phone has a freakin’ camera. From the lowly Nokias sold only in countries with military dictators or communistic societies, to the iPhone. Did anyone on the Zune product team realize that? Didn’t they realize that including a camera with the Zune would have been seen by the Zune fanboi cadre as, you know, genius?
Fire the Zune Product Team!
Don’t get me started on the price positioning with the iPhone!
This goes to the sybaritic nature of the product managers at Microsoft.
Why, dimwits, does the MSRP of the Zune mirror that of the iPod? Why again?
Somebody tell these drones that no matter how good, the Zune ain’t no iPod, and as a result, does NOT deserve premium pricing.
Someone publicly flog the Zune pricing team!
On the eve of the public release of the Zune, I, as someone who bought two Zune 30s at their release, scored a Zune Nano, and a Zune v2, would not be taking the plunge.
I ain’t feelin’ the Zune HD.
Follow me on Twitter