Zune player and store - togetherness

Digital Music News has an incredible amount of info on the Zune. Based on materials given to various partners (the source of the tapping up iPod accessory manufacturers story?), details of the strategy, player, software, e-commerce, and marketing aspects of the release have started to be revealed.

The first thing is that Zune 1 will not be sold as an iPod killer. They are aggressively aiming to capture "20 percent" of the iPod market - still a massive undertaking. Also, they are targeting a slightly younger demographic than the iPod - 18-28. That means that we can probably expect to see a whole load of extras over and above the music downloads. Think of the mobile phone sector: ringtones, mini-games etc. make millions upon millions of dollars every year. With the Zune shipping with thnecessaryry bits to download things, it would be daft for Microsoft to miss that. Apple, with an older demographic may not be able to sell sucadditionalal downloads as easily.

The WiFi support sounds interesting. Local sharing will be possible over WiFi, but in a streaming manner. ie. you can listen but you can't keep. What you can do is flag the track and download it later. Nice touch.

Cost will be an issue for some, with a 30Gb Zune costing broadly similar to a 60Gb iPod, but that will be in the US this November - the rest of the world will have to wait until next year, by which time the new generation iPods should be launched, and Microsoft may have to reduce prices slightly. The UK and Canada will be next in line.

Some details recently have suggested that the Zune may be a cut down mobile phone or PDA, but it looks like Microsoft are creating a whole new branch of technology within MS here. The device will not be compatible with any existing Windows Media Services. So I guess we can kiss goodbye to Divx codecs...

The store side of the device will offer the normal kind of options such as per-track, and subscription, but scores one over iTunes by being able to offer variable pricing which will keep the big labels sweet. Forced bundling (ie. get the whole album not just the handful of good tracks) will also be there, again, a concession to the labels - but then Microsoft knows it needs their support.

The Microsoft Marketing machine rolls into action this Fall, with Zune to be launched on the scale of the Xbox, including a "7 cities in 7 nights" tour, with big-name artists performing live.

Phew. There'a lotot there, but there's still a lot to come, so add us to your feedreader and make sure you keep up to date with all the latest Zune news.