With the tagline "a thousand songs in your pocket", the historic launch of Apple's first generation iPod took the tech world by storm. Within five years, the company dominated the world of portable music players without any other big competitor in the market. In the meantime, longtime rival Microsoft took a laissez-faire approach to its portable music devices early on, leaving it up to third-party manufacturers — like Samsung, iRiver and Creative -— to use Windows software to create their own gadgets it goes without saying that none of these devices had any real footing in the market.
But by , while Apple quickly became known as an icon for its futuristic and trendy branding, challenger Microsoft teamed up with tech giant Toshiba to give the iPod a run for its money: enter Zune. Technically speaking, Zune's first incarnation, the Zune 30, looked and worked much like an iPod save for the 'i' in front of it. One could store a library of songs on the device and click manually through selections.
The first generation model even allowed users to stream music, sync songs over WiFi and even send music and photos to friends -— all features that Apple hadn't yet integrated into its products. But many tech critics ripped the product initially, chastising the gadget for its bulky size and brown color. One of the more curious was Zune.
However, just five years later Zune ended despite the considerable promise that the product had as a portable entertainment service. It seemed like a logical move for Microsoft at the time to challenge Apple and its products, particularly the highly popular iPod which dominated the mp3 marketplace.
But in the end, Zune simply never found an audience. It became quickly forgotten once it disappeared by But the story of Zune and why it failed serves as a lesson that even the biggest and most successful companies can have products that fail despite expectations. Despite the promise from Microsoft that MSN Music would last at least five years, it was closed after just two years and replaced by Zune.
The Zune products and services consisted of the following. In addition, Zune was also the video and music streaming service for Xbox , a part of Zune Software.
Zune also had several other products and services that were part of Windows Phone, television, music, and movie sales, and even the music streaming service for United Airlines for their in-flight entertainment.
Zune users could share songs with each other wirelessly, albeit in a limited fashion. Over the next five years, Zune was updated with new devices, improved software, and many other features to take advantage of what was perceived to be a wide-open market. The ultimate iteration was the Zune HD released in Ultimately, the Zune underwent four generations from its initial introduction in to the final generation being released in , coinciding with the Zune HD.
But with all the attention and effort being placed into the Zune, it simply did not catch on with the general public. Several factors led to the failure of the Microsoft Zune system. Timing, poor marketing, and a lack of focus are noted as the main reasons for the swift downfall. Perhaps most importantly that it was launched about five years after the iPod. They had plenty of time to plan. What should have been a well-thought-out release, suffered from a lack of planning with no road map to success.
Apple had gained such a lead on the market that Zune was simply too far behind to catch up. Being too long in development and addressing a need that Apple was fulfilling was a huge reason why the Zune simply could not get off the ground.
With the mp3 market dominated by Apple, Zune was just not positioned to compete effectively. Especially with the other factors that marked its downfall. Marketing campaigns that work inform consumers about exactly what the product is, what it addresses, and why they should have it.
Instead, it tried to create a cool vibe to attract consumers without the necessary information to let them know what they were getting. The marketing team for Zune failed to set the product aside, and they were narrowly focused. The team targeted most of their campaigns towards a particular audience, forgetting the general audience who would have benefited from the product.
As a result, the marketing team failed to engage the wider audience by aiming at a niche group. Lack of motivation also affected the sales of Zune and therefore failed. Zune did not have enough features to compete with IPod or address any features that IPod did not have Damra, Microsoft Zune did not offer better pricing to compete with the iPod.
Looking at the GB variant, Zune cost much more compared to the iPod classic Another thing is that Zune did not provide many accessories as Apple did. With the iPod, one could get other accessories such as FM transmitters, and toilet paper holders that could dock an iPod.
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