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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