Touted to be the digital media player that would entirely eclipse the iPod, Microsoft Zune ultimately turned out to be one of the biggest tech failures ever. In the following piece, we have pinpointed some of the key causes behind the flop show of Zune.
Apple iPod is no longer as popular as it used to be in the mid-2000s. Quarterly sales figures started petering off over the last few years – presumably due to the launch of several competing, and cheaper, digital media player applications and devices. In fact, when Microsoft released Zune in November 2006, the latter was widely tipped to make iPod practically obsolete. The excessive hype, however, did not work out in Zune’s favor – and within five years, production (of the Zune hardware) had to be stopped. Here are some of the reasons why Microsoft Zune could not even come close to giving the iPod (which still generates steady, if slightly low, revenue figures) a tough fight:
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Late arrival – Being a ‘me-too’ product never helps, and unfortunately, Zune was precisely that. The first line of iPods were out by 2001, and by the time Microsoft’s ‘next big thing’ arrived, a considerable percentage of the worldwide markets had already been captured. Zune did not have any such compelling feature which would have influenced people to switch over from iPod. Initial demands were low, and the figures never really picked up.
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Music-sharing feature did not catch on – Seamless sharing of music files was the top-billed standout feature of Microsoft Zune – and it appealed to precious few. At the time, general users as well as professional software and mobile app developers were wary of the legal aspect of sharing music, without getting proper legal permits. There had even been cases of music companies suing individuals over this issue. The very factor that was supposed to boost Zune’s popularity fell flat on its face.
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Poor reach – The people who indeed liked the music-sharing feature of Zune faced one critical problem. They had to find another Zune-user (maybe a friend, a colleague, or a neighbor) to send/receive files. Given the low-key response to the digital media player, it was almost always problematic to form a network of Zune-owners. As a result, many individuals simply had no one to share music with. And no, Zune did not support music from iTunes.
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The heavier build – Microsoft Zune was larger, and heavier, than the iPod. While people did not quite have problems in holding the device in their hands, the convenience-factor that it offered was way less than that provided by Apple’s already-popular product. Ideally, the size of the Zune device should have been similar to that of iPod Nano. Size wasn’t the chief factor that contributed to Zune’s downfall, but it certainly played its part!
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Limited customization options – Executives from any software or mobile apps company would agree that customized digital products are the ones that tend to do well in the market. Microsoft practically overlooked this necessity while designing Zune. Users could toggle between three alternative background display colors/themes – and that was all the personalization that could be done on it. To compete with the ‘cool’ iPod, Zune needed to have customizable fonts and definitely a better picture gallery. To put it plainly, Zune was boring.
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Too standalone for its own good – It came as something of a shocker when it was found that Zune was not compatible with Microsoft’s very own Windows operating system (OS). Music purchased from MSN Music, or present in Windows Media Player could not be played on the device. The idea was probably to make a digital media player that did not have to be paired with any other computer application or mobile apps. As things turned out, Zune as a standalone product did not have a chance of surviving.
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The advertising campaign was all wrong – As a former senior official of Microsoft Mobile & Home Entertainment later admitted, the promotional strategy adopted for Zune was not good enough. The ads were either too intellectual and artsy to connect with average viewers, or were downright misleading. The Zune-to-Zune squirting feature was excessively harped upon, and the visuals (with skulls and bugs!) gave off the impression that the player might have virus issues. Even average iPhone app development companies dedicate considerable time to think up smart taglines and ads for their products – it begs belief that Microsoft messed up so bad on this.
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Zune was too pricey – And when it was brought to the same price bracket as the iPod, it did not find too many takers either. The introductory price of Zune ($284) practically ruled it out as a casual buying item for music lovers – given that the iPod (30 GB) was available for less than $250). When the price levels of the two products became similar, new buyers still opted for iPod, which had considerable positive word-of-mouth publicity, and no DRM-related problems (unlike Zune).
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Buying songs on Zune was confusing – You had to have a certain amount of money (in cents) to earn a particular number of Zune points. Then, these points could be used to buy music – but you were not allowed to spend all the points that you had earned. The pricing strategy that those up top at Microsoft had framed surely had some logic about it – but it went way above the head of general users. At 79 points, Zune tunes were publicised to be ‘cheaper’ than iTunes music, but no one could quite fathom how the math worked out.
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The store display strategy was a disaster – At any store for Apple Products, buyers can actually touch and feel the iPod in their hands, before deciding whether to buy it or not. There is a free feel about the device, which was totally absent in how Microsoft Zune was displayed in stores. The usual custom was to strap it down on the display table, with potential buyers only having the chance to poke and prod it a bit through the narrow openings. A new product has to capture the attention of people at once, and Zune could not do that…not by a long shot.
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Targeting the wrong target-segment – Quality-wise, Microsoft Zune was not the worst tech product ever to be launched, but it turned out to be one of the biggest turkeys. One of the key reasons for that must be Microsoft’s decision to target the higher-end of the market – where Apple iPod already enjoyed an almost monopoly-like position. What’s more, owning an iPod was (for some, it still is!) considered to be some sort of a status symbol. Zune had no unique brand identity of its own to compete in this segment. Instead, if it had come up with a product specifically targeted towards the lower-end of the market, chances of success would have been higher. The desperate attempt to project itself as a premium product did not work out for Zune.
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No wi-fi support – Yes, it was only 2006 – and even then, the absence of wireless internet coverage on Microsoft’s so-called cutting-edge digital media player rankled. Over time, as almost every Android and iPhone apps started offering seamless wi-fi and social media integration, Zune gradually began to be perceived as an outdated device. If you wanted to download tunes on Zune on the go – you had to stay disappointed, for that was not possible!
The lower-than-average battery life of Zune and the unsatisfactory quality of its earplugs (admittedly, those of the iPod aren’t excellent either) did not help matters too. Even the music squirting feature had strict restrictions (from company authorities) – lowering its value further. The Microsoft Zune software can still be downloaded on Windows 7-powered gadgets – but there’s no denying that the product, set out to be iPod’s replacement, had flopped big-time in the worldwide markets!
Hussain Fakhruddin
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