With the proven worldwide success of Apple’s iPod portable media player, Microsoft has become very determined and optimistic with its newest multimedia product dubbed as Zune. The company is looking forward to their digital device which appears to play a key role in their Live Anywhere Initiative, an ambitious “connected experience” plan for linking the home entertainment system with a mobile device platform.

Zune first appeared in the US market on November 14, 2006. The 30-gigabyte model portable media player is capable of playing ASF, MP3, WMA, WMA Pro (2 channel), MP4, WMV, MPEG4, JPEG and AAC files. Aside from USB, which is common to portable players like the iPod for PC synchronization, Zune also supports Wi-Fi connectivity. The Wi-Fi communication feature enables limited sharing of multimedia files to other Zune users within the 30 feet radius. Image files can be distributed without any constraint but with music and video files, recipients can only play the file three times for three days and then the file expires. However, recipients can save the filenames of expired audio files for later purchase at Zune Marketplace. Zune users can also stream multimedia contents to Xbox 360 game console via USB or from a PC via Zune Software on a home network.

The Zune system was sold at US$249.99 during the first release but discounted rates are appearing at major online retailers possibly due to sluggish sales. Zune players come in three different casing colors: brown, black and white. Orange, pink and red players also appeared as limited editions recently. The Zune system has 3-inch 320 x 240 screen resolution QVGA LCD display that can show over 65,000 colors. It has a dimension of 4.4 × 2.4 × 0.58-inch (11.2 × 6.1 × 1.4 cm) and weighs 5.6 ounces (158.8 grams). The Zune comes with USB data cable, carrying bag and earphones.

A new digital rights management system dubbed as Windows Media DRM (WMDRM) was implemented on Zune systems. The said rights management system is incompatible with other existing DRM systems. It includes Zune Marketplace for online purchase of media files and Zune Software, client software for PC. It uses a proprietary Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), which has some incompatibilities or interoperability issues with other existing MTP software and services. A future Zune DRM has been discussed in further detail in the Zune blog. Visit the DRM category for more details.

Microsoft has collaborated with Toshiba in coming up with its Zune product. The media player system is largely based on Gigabeat S, which was registered as Toshiba 1089 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The limitations of Zune media player had invoked many critics to make say on the Microsoft’s product. Their criticisms focused mainly on the implementation of proprietary DRM, which according to them tend to make the product’s network sharing very restrictive and unfair. DRM restrictions are applied even if the media file is not played up to the end, is self-recorded and copyright-free, among others. Others industry literati also noticed the shortcomings of the Zune and missing features that could have improved the multimedia device.

Microsoft, however, has allocated over $100 million campaign budget to promote Zune along with its theme “the music the way you want it to be.” Major food chains and establishments such as McDonalds and Starbucks have agreed to work with Microsoft by setting up Wi-Fi networks that will serve as Zune’s “filling up” stations.

Zune is scheduled for release on the European market on the first quarter of 2007.

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