There has been no Official Release Date for Microsoft Zune players but it appears to many that the actual release date will be before November 14th. Some think Zune may be released as soon as October. Whenever it is released the Zune Shop is ready to ship Zunes. You can pre-order Zune players from the Zune Shop through our partnerships with Amazon and Walmart. Take your pick from either and buy a Zune from ZuneMAX.com. Doing so entitles you to a chance to get a $100 rebate on your Zune player.

From Endgadget: "Our Zune tipsters tell us that the Microsoft Zune is going to be launched the week before Thanksgiving this November."

An early November release date makes perfect sense. The holiday shopping season traditionally takes off just after Thanksgiving. We should expect to see a heavy marketing campaing in August and September with Mass market channels getting first crack on sales. So hopefully you can buy a Zune for the holidays right around Thanksgiving.

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There has been much said bout the Zune music player and the Microsoft DRM Some feel that in order to succeed the Zune player must offer a more open DRM and be less restrictive than the Apple Ipod is with FairPlay. The common logic being that the less restrictive DRM will offer customers more freedoms in their use of purchased content.

Critics feel a more restrictive DRM will stifle the industry and takes away rights from the consumer to manage their content their way. Whatever your thoughts on an open DRM it appears that Microsoft may have their own plans for a new DRM. We have uncovered a PDF document produced by the Microsoft Research team that may explain more on a Microsoft DRM and why the Zune will not be an open architecture. It remains to be seen what DRM the Zune will actually operate under but this document may shed some light on Microsofts plans for a future Zune DRM.

First off please understand we are not scientists and are still working to decipher some aspects of this document. But it appears that Microsoft may have much larger plans for the Zune family of devices than just to play music and videos. We suggest you read the entire report located here and draw your own conclusions.

This excerpt is from the main page for the International Workshop on
Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video . These statements are made by members of the Off-line Economies for Digital Media team Darko Kirovski and Kamal Jain from Microsoft Research.

We propose a novel platform for building off-line markets for digital content. The key objective is to enable an arbitrary user of specific digital content to resell it to other users in an off-line peer-to-peer manner so that part of the proceeds goes to content’s copyright holder. Most importantly, one part of the revenues is retained by the seller as an incentive for participating in the distributed economy. To address this objective, a transaction is finalized and incentives distributed to the seller on-line using a client-server architecture. Technologically, such systems can be readily created, for example, by adding a communication tool such as Bluetooth to a portable media player such as the iPod. In this paper, we present a threat model for this system and devise a novel protocol that relies on traditional public-key cryptography to ensure secure and efficient off-line transactions of arbitrary digital content. As a consequence, in our system copyright holders can control the pricing and recruit a powerful marketing and sales force with marginal investment and via various types of incentives, users are offered the ability to sell or purchase content they like anywhere, anytime, and to/from anyone.

It would seem that this platform would offer users the ability to not only buy and share content but to also facilitate sales of user generated content as well. As we can determine it seems this DRM would not only allow a user to purchase and listen to content via the standard music service but in addition an artist would have the ability to create and sell their own content through the same service in a user to user fashion facilitated by the DRM and accompanying services. It appears this new DRM architecture will allow an artist to charge for and be paid for their own works and Microsoft will of course share in the profits. It seems the much talked about Zune to Zune service is more than discovering new artists and sharing music it’s about selling new music as well.

This would of course explain the numerous media reports on why the Zune will not be PlaysForSure Compliant. Microsoft developed the PlaysForSure certification program in late 2004 as part of a branding campaign designed to promote products and services that were compatible the Microsoft DRM system. It was an attempt to assure consumers that they could buy any compliant player, subscribe to a compliant music service, and have a seamless digital music experience on par with anything produced by Apple.

In order to offer the music sharing features on a Wifi device the Zune will most likely have to use a more restrictive DRM in order to offer security and protection to the content license holders. Microsoft has also been reported to be in talks with recording studios and artists to support their new music player. A DRM that allowed musicians to create, distribute and sell their own music would play right into the hand of artists. Microsoft seems keen on using the artists support to boost popularity of their new portable music device. If Microsoft succeeds in putting more money into the hands of the artisits they have a chance at making the Zune a hit. This new DRM could be a boon for smaller independant recording artists by offering them the ability to create, license and sell their own original copyrighted works direct to consumer.

Could a new more restrictive Microsoft DRM be key to the success of the Zune? Further analysis to follow.

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That’s right. Win a Free Microsoft Zune. Be the first kid on your block with the hottest toy of the Year. Zune MAX is offering a brand new Microsoft Zune player to one lucky winner of our Join the Zune Forum contest.

Simply join the Microsoft Zune Forums and start posting about the Zune MP3 player. Be original and tell us what you think of the new Zune music player from Microsoft. Make just one post to the forum and you are entered to win.

On January 01, 2007 we’ll select one creative member of our forums to be the lucky winner of the new Microsoft Zune. It’s really that easy just join our forum and come the first of the year you could have the new portable music device from Microsoft that experts have called the “Ipod Killer”.

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Graphic taken from Microsoft Stock Holders Presentation. Copyright Microsoft Corporation

The Zune Insider provides some information about a recent financial presentation given by Robbie Bach the President of the Entertainment and Devices Division for Microsoft. The Zune Insider provides information direct from the Microsoft Website. Whatever you may think of him this comes straight from Microsoft so it has to be good. Our analysis of  The Financial Analyst Meeting 2006 reveals the details of what Microsoft plans for not only the Zune family of mobile devices but their larger plans for a future of interconnected devices and services catered to the digital lifestyle.

Bach statements are in italics for clarity.

Bach says while giving the presentation "One thing that hasn’t changed is our focus on the digital lifestyle. When I was here last year, I talked extensively about why we think the digital lifestyle is such a tremendous opportunity for the company and a tremendous opportunity for our group. And whether you’re at a PC or in your car or traveling or sitting down in front of the TV, we think we can deliver an amazing connected experience around the digital lifestyle."

We can see that the Zune is but a small part of this Microsoft Live initiative. This is another step towards establishing a platform of devices, applications and services to help a person manage their entire digital life with a little help and a monthly subcription to Microsoft. Bach continues by saying.

"But in some ways more importantly, the secret sauce to our strategy is the community and services we are going to use to tie these experiences together, because in the world of digital lifestyles, how people interact with others, the community they build, the services they have access to, really is what’s going to lead this business to success. And it’s a great place for Microsoft to differentiate itself."

Here he shows the "secret sauce" of their strategy and the way they plan to differentiate themselves is by building communities and services to tie things together. Well we’ve already seen them building communities with Xbox Live and we all understand the power of social networking (insert Myspace here). It appears that what Microsoft hopes to do is bring together an even greater audience with the integration of multiple media services in their own community.

Bach lays down steps for a grand plan with these statements.

"First of all, we have to launch Windows Vista. That’s critical to our gaming platform. This is the first version of Windows in probably four or five years that has significant advancements in gaming technology."

Windows is of course the foundation of all Microsoft plans. The most profitable division in their organization has always been the OS and in building more devices to license an operating system on they secure a stable future of their biggest money maker. Future versions of Windows will no doubt take on more a home management function and control things around the house from a centralized platform. Envision your automated home maintaining your favorite temperatures in each room, it can record, store and play your favorite media, it will manage your finances, it will make a pot of coffee every morning and it can even water the lawn twice a week. All through mechanized controls managed from your home pc and Windows Live for support.

"We also have to keep growing the Xbox 360 business. This is about building an install base. And now is the time to do that. By the time we reach the end of the calendar year, we think we will have a 10 million-unit console lead in install base, and that is a huge advantage for us relative to our competitors."

People wondered why they spent billions to win over the gaming market and here we realize it was much more than games. What they wanted was a dedicated base of users. In  the gaming industry they can brand their users at a young age and develop a loyal lifelong customer. This base sits on top of a Windows OS and software applications. How easy will it be to have Xbox users working with Microsoft applications throughout the rest of their lives? Microsft had great vision to develop this Live initiative and ambitious plans on how far they want to go with it.

"We’ve done a spectacular job in the IPTV space driving trials worldwide. You look at the list of customers we have who are trying our software; it’s a who’s who of the telecom industry, and we’re getting real traction with those and leading those toward commercial trials"

IPTV is a flank move on the television industry to take control of an even larger base of users. By securing a foothold on the Internet Television market and establishing market dominance they can cut out cable providers and take over the entire television industry. The merger between tv and the internet will be more of the internet assimilating the television market as it consumes all other media providers. It’s but a matter of time before all everything is available through your broadband connection. If Microsoft takes lead on IPTV they may some day control every television viewer in the world.

"When you add that to the fact that there’s integration opportunities between what we’re doing in IPTV and Xbox 360, and we’re already taking advantage of the opportunity to integrate between Media Center and Xbox, you really have in this entertainment space a great position for Microsoft."

This shows what we already can see about their integration plans. The Xbox and Media Center tie ins are well known. Having gamers playing on their platform has worked well for Microsoft and they are certain to continue pushing things as far as they can. The bigger picture of the Windows Live Anywhere project becomes more clear with the following.

"Finally, one of the things that we just announced last week is a move into the music and video space in portable entertainment, something we call Zune. I want to spend a few moments here talking about Zune and give you a little bit of context. I think the first thing to understand about Zune is that we are taking a more integrated approach to this. Microsoft will be involved in the hardware, in the software, and the services. We think that’s important to produce the number one thing that has to happen in this marketplace, which is a great customer experience. And we have to tie those things together in some ways like we have in the Xbox world, where in the hardware, software, and Xbox Live service we have tied things together in a great experience."

There has been some confusion about whether the Zune is a real product. We think you can see once again that this is a real project and that this device will soon be available. You can have all the leaked insider reports and photos you want. This is the President of a Division in Microsoft explaining to financial investors about their new portable entertainment device. He is not speaking about some far off future plans but stating facts about real products and services soon to come.

"Looking at Zune as part of our broader picture. You know, in the case of Apple, they have certainly an iMac business, they have their iPod business, and they’ve sold a few things in the home that compete with Media Center, although the numbers there are actually quite small. Look at our business: We have a burgeoning IPTV business that we think is going to grow and be successful in the home. We have Media Center in over 14 million units and growing around the world. We have Xbox 360 in place and growing around the world. We have Xbox Live, MSN, and our Windows Live initiatives expanding. Put all of those things together, and then take Zune and put it in the context of that. It enables us to complete the picture. It enables us to have the full entertainment and connected entertainment experience that we want to have. And so that’s why Zune is important, and it is a way we’re going to differentiate ourselves, because the experience of having Zune in that connected environment is going to be a dramatically better experience than you get just from having a portable music player."

Bach shows what we already know that they are planning a big push with the Zune family in order to once again grab a larger base of users for their future plans. The Zune is probably as big if not bigger then Xbox because with Zune if they fail it will destroy their plans for integration into the future services. We think that Microsoft will be taking a very serious approach to market dominance with the Zune portable media devices. The Zune has to have at least a moderate level of success and pay for itself in order for them to pursue further investment of this Live Anywhere initiative.

"I want to talk a little bit about further out something called connected entertainment, because our ultimate vision here in this space is how do we bring all these things together into an experience that is new and different for people? How do we enable people to have their content—whether it’s a movie, a game, a video, a piece of music, someplace in their environment—and be able to get at it from wherever they want, whether they’re in their car, whether they’re walking on the street, whether they’re in their living room, whether they’re in the den in front of a PC? That, we think, is a very powerful vision, and the combination of what’s going on in the networking space, and the work we’re doing with our devices, and our service, much like what you saw in Live Anywhere, we think we can deliver on a very integrated approach to content, that is very powerful not just for us and for our customers, but also for the content providers, because it gives them access to new experiences and to new customers."

In this final statement he just about wraps it up. These points lay out the ground work for integration of a variety of media platforms through a set of interconnected devices and services. Windows Live Anywhere really is a grand planl. If Microsoft can pull it off they will have a huge base of users. By tying the pc, the portable entertainment and home gaming system they create a complete entertainment system. As soon as they can add mobile communication services such as phone and text messaging to be connected through the same services it would be amazing.

The Zune portable player is an important step in their goals towards this Live Anywhere initiative. They have a strong position in the pc and game industry and are now focused on building and maintaining that. The mobile device has been the weakest link and Microsoft now feels it best that they do it on their own. They have had success with Xbox by taking more control of things and with any luck they will have great success with the Zune as well.

The mobile device is also the most powerful in the group since it is the one device to tie them all together. The Zune will be much more than a music player. If Microsoft is capable of completing this suite the Zune mobile communication and entertainment device will be the center piece of a digital lifestyle and interconnected community. One thing is for certain. Microsoft has a lot riding on the success of the Zune and they are going to do what it takes in order to see it succeed.

We think there will be a huge battle fought between Apple and Microsoft to see who has the coolest player. Right now Apple leads the pack with a high cool factor and a huge base of users that bought in because it was the hip thing to do. If Microsoft wants to beat Apple they have to be that much cooler. Possibly the smartest move they make will be in courting the artists as their spokespersons. If they provide more incentive to the artists through a larger cut of their profits they will make lots of friends in the recording industry and every wanna be hip hop mogul and movie star will be sporting the new Zune for the holidays.

What better way to be make your product cool than to let the cool people do it for you?

Graphic taken from Microsoft Stock Holders Presentation. Copyright Microsoft Corporation

Download the PowerPoint presentation (16 MB)

Watch the shareholder webcast.

zune

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The media play on the Microsoft Zune has been all over the place. There is so much hype and noise its hard to decipher the truth. Opinions are across the board with many Microsoft fans looking forward to a new mp3 player on the market. Most feel the competition will be good for the industry while others lament the damage to Microsoft Partnerships with companies such as Creative and iRiver.

We have heard tons of rumors about what is Zune and what the Zune player will be. We thought to put together a list of what we know as fact about the Zune to help clear things up a bit. This list was compiled with reference to a post on Endgadget. The definitive resource for gadgets

So the details on the Microsoft Zune are still not clear but we do have a list of things that are known for certain about the Zune project formerly known as Argo.

10 things we know about the Microsoft Zune

1. Zune is in fact the official name Microsoft project, the brand, and the devices to follow.
2. The first Zune media device will be launched this summer 2006 and play music with more and different devices to come in 2007.
3. The Zune brand encompasses not only the hardware device, but the software that drives it (duh its Microsoft) , as well as a music, movie, and media download service. The Zune family of hardware devices will be promoted as used for acquiring and discovery of media with emphasis on community networking and referrals.
4. Music will be the first service that is launched with "connected entertainment" of a variety of media sources including music, movies and video being the ultimate goal.
5. The Zune media service will work through social networking and community building aspects through user recommendation. A strong emphasis is being placed on using the Microsoft Zune to discover new artists, media, etc.
6. The Zune media device will be hard drive based device with WiFi capabilities.
7. The Zune brand is intended to be a vertically integrated end-to-end entertainment solution offering an almost limitless entertainment services.
8. The service and device will not be PlaysForSure compliant, meaning you will not be able to use your Zune player with Napster or Vongo as an example. This will be an entirely different and new music and media system. Microsoft will certainly continue to offer support and development for their PlaysForSure initiative because all things PlaysForSure are handled by two entirely separate division that will not have any crossover ties.
9. Zune is under Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division, and is being headed by Robbie Bach, J Allard , and Bryan Lee from the Xbox Team
10. The Zune is for real and for those that never thought it would happen watch out because here it comes.

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Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft, said at the company’s financial analysts meeting.

"We think of this in the hundreds of millions of dollars of investment" over several years, Bach said. "It is something that is going to take time. This is not a six-month initiative."

We would consider that confirmation that a serious push is on to take Apple out of the top spot. "hundreds of millions" is a drop in the bucket for Microsoft and if things heat up they have a huge cash war chest to destroy any competition.

Face facts. the Ipod is hot because of a slick marketing campaign at the right market. Take a look at the current earnings reports and you will see that advertising is down on ipod and up in the computer side but sales in computers has not kept up the same margins as sales on Ipod’s does with heavy marketing.

If Microsoft decides to push hard they have the money to crush everyone but Apple and put a serious dent in their lead at the top.

Bach didn’t offer new details on Zune but said creating a sense of community and making it easier to find new music are central to it. "We’re not just introducing Zune to do the same thing other people do," Bach said. Still, he said, the company expects it to take three to five years for the effort to really pay off.

We’re sure that hundreds of millions is more like the kickoff budget more than a an extended advertising campaign budget but we’ll see how well this 5 year plan works. If Microsoft is to take a lead in the portable device market the Zune will have to be a smashing success and first generation devices must offer reliable performance.

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This photo from the Retail Vision Summit shows Steve Ballmer of Microsoft heading
a presentation on the Zune. In case you cant read the image very well we have
copied the text bullets here for you.

This shows a bit more of the plan for Zune. the reference to the community
entertainment experiences is very much like the Xbox live service they currently
run and the ZuneLive.com domain seems ready to take off as well.

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The hype on Zune is getting mad. Gizmodo offers this Breaking News: Microsoft Zune Gets FCC Approval?

If you read this story you will see that the hype appears to be getting out of control. This article publishes that Microsoft has received approval from the FCC for the Zune. But we are a bit sceptical about this. The FCC filing is for a product called the Microsoft Presenter 3000. A quick search on the web finds this product as listed for sale on Froogle for about $50 retail. We can’t determine exactly what it is but the details seem misleading in the above referenced Mobile Whack article.

If this FCC application is in fact for the new mobile device from Microsoft then someone should tell the shops in Froogle to stop selling it so cheap. It leads us to beleive people will print most any hype they find without first checking into things. It’s a shame Gizmodo has fallen for this as it is obviously not the new MP3 player being shown in these FCC documents but a different device all together.

EDIT - It appears the Presenter 3000 is a device designed for use with Microsoft Power Point and not the Zune. As we suspected the Zune does not appear to have received FCC approval yet.

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Posted in ZDNET “With much about Microsoft’s iPod rival still shrouded in secrecy, its wireless capability stands out as something novel to take on Apple Computer.”

We have to agree the wireless features are the most interesting. We are also concerned with whether they will function properly and of course security is a concern for everyone. It may not be so safe to let kids run around with wireless devices that are sure to collect personal information. Microsoft does not have the best reputation for developing safe and secure products and with an obvious market to teens and children they had better have plans of beefed up security.

MusicGremlin says that companies tend to underestimate the challenges when it comes to adding wireless capabilities to portable players.

“It’s very easy to create a wireless device,” they said. “It’s very difficult to make it work and connect in the way that a lot of people envision.”

Creating a secure wireless system to be used by children may seem to pose risks. Lets hope Microsoft is up to the challenge.

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Wireless features on the Zune are part of a larger project that will open up the Windows OS to more devices and as we all know the OS is the cash maker in the Windows family. We get this from Billboard.biz

“Chris Stephenson, Microsoft’s new GM of marketing for MSN Entertainment Business, says that wireless Internet access is necessary for the portable devices to fit into Microsoft’s grander plan. That scenario is to provide ubiquitous access to digital media from a wide range of Windows-powered devices in what ultimately aspires to be one part MySpace, one part iTunes and one part Xbox Live.”

It’s a smart move on the part of Microsoft again to open up the OS to more devices by creating the devices. Let’s hope we can get some high end capabilities and reliability from the Zune. By creating new markets for the flagship product Microsoft is looking to cement leadership in the future OS market by doing what the open source can’t do and that build their own products. Its left to see if other hardware manufacturers are interested in binding their gear with the Windows operating system. Doing so brings with it not only the good points but the bad stuff also.

“The ability to connect the different devices is a key part of the strategy,” Stephenson says. “Whether it’s a portable media device, or a phone, or the Xbox or Media Center PC, the idea is you can access your entertainment from anywhere.”

Think Secret.com reveals that the portable unit will be equipped with a 400MHz SDP processor, more than enough power for handling sound and video playback. This could mean that Microsoft also considers the possiblity of using Zune as a portable video game console, or at least give it some sort of gaming functionality. Except from a powerful processor the media player will be equiped with wireless network support and possibly even a satellite receiver.

Mobile satellite service on your mobile media device would be wicked. The capabilities of such a device are wideopen. It could become a multi purpose platform with video, music and gaming features in a mobile connect setting with tie in to a home based system of the same capabilities. In the future your Windows Pc will communicate with your Microsoft Xbox as well as your Microsoft Zune Mobile Media Player all at once. This may happen in a workgroup setting but possibly under your own domain running some future version of IIS as well.

Of course not everyone has such high hopes for the Zune. There are of course other MP3 players on the market besides teh Ipod and many of those are partnered with Microsoft. Heres the last paragraph of an article on Jupiter Research “The real losers in the short term are likely to be the likes of Creative, iRiver and other former partners that have failed to deliver to market share from Apple and will now find themselves not only competing with Apple but with their former partners from Redmond.” we’re certain that the folks at Creative adn iRiver arenot ver happy abut the Zune. Maybe they can carve a niche in the high end market and manufacture Zune compliant devices under the Microsoft brand.

Whatever happens it appears Microsoft has huge plans for Zune and they look to be taking the right steps towards knocking Apple from the top spot. Maybe this is the Ipod Killer that everyone thinks it is. Apple will have a hard time beating Microsoft if they could pull this grand plan off. We’ll bring you more opinion when we have one.

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