Thursday, August 31, 2006

WU'S SEEN THE FUTURE AND IT'S OK-ISH

Microsoft have snuck out some prototype Zune players for people to look at, and market analyst Shaw Wu isn't impressed. He even reckons that it's not even a new player, just an old one with a new box:

"Microsoft had hinted of an all-new design from the ground up, but from our analysis, it appears that the Zune is essentially a repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat that has seen limited success."

There is something worth noting here - Wu is suggesting Zune will be a failure to rank alongside the XBox. Yes, the XBox, which might look like a success but has yet to return any profit to Microsoft, nor does it look likely to. But from Microsoft's point of view, it has done the job of weakening - perhaps even destroying - Sony's Playstation (and, with it, much of Sony's consumer electronics business's comfort zone.) There are piles of cash the size of houses at Microsoft, and they might not be that bothered about making a loss on the deal if they can start to claw back even a tiny bit of ground from Apple.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Xbox didn't weaken or kill the Playstation- Sony have been able to do that for themselves, just as they did with the network walkman. That such a great company should be falling prey to such stoatbanging idiocy is incredible.

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

Oh, it's true that Sony have screwed up the Playstation for themselves, but a lot of that has been down to the need to promise and schedule with one eye on what Microsoft is up to...

Anonymous said...

That's true, but both projects (PS3 and Walkman) have also been Donald Ducked by Sony's appalling DRM policies.

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