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The Microsoft Zune Phone Is Coming

phandroid

Admin News Bot
Apr 12, 2008
10,396
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Industry insiders are claiming that in 2009, Microsoft will release a mobile phone at either the Consumer Electronics Show in January or the 3GSM Conference in February. This isn’t a stunning revelation - the concept of a Zune Phone has churned in the rumor mill ever since Apple had a runaway success with the iPhone. [...]

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Don't get me wrong, I love Microsoft, the MS development and server products pay my bills, but I think they should invest more into XBox than Zune. They are losing ground to PS3 and need to find ways to stop that.

Let Apple do the music thing. MacOS will never hold a good enough market share to truly challenge Windows.

Focus on Windows, Office, Server, and XBox. Those 4 pillars will keep Microsoft comfortable for many more years.
 
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I don't know man the implications of this would be huge it could honestly put them back in the game when it comes to mp3 players and now with android win mo OS is in danger of being tossed aside and going extinct they may have to do this just to save that branch of the company

Noone- you hit the nail on the head and Rob and Cryptic your comments are interesting. But as an original Danger Hiptop (Sidekick) user, and with Andy Rubin's early influence, Microsoft's purchase about a year ago of Danger led many to assume the Zune and Danger OS would be their consumer grade product line with a potential Xbox/PSP type tie in while the WinMo would be biz focused.

Obviously things change and as I have read about how "Live" brand has been over applied and will be split off, it makes you think that Post BG, Microsoft realizes a four pillar strategy is good but an integrated mesh strategy means your Xbox talks to your phone talks to your PC talks to your music talks to your videos and photos and all media is accessible in all places.

I see the future of the ZunePhone being something Danger does already really well and is not given enough credit. As Rob said in his article, software as a service was Google's big announcement.
 
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Yeah but you have to ask yourself. Does anyone want this? Zune+phone=Zunephone? who cares. When Apple did iPod+phone=iPhone it was a new product, a new idea, and a revelation in the phone market. What does a ZunePhone do? Its either going to have to be cheaper then free to take off if all it is is a phone with a zune in it (which is what, an OS and some storage space). Or have something that no other device has, and good luck with that.
 
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Yeah but you have to ask yourself. Does anyone want this? Zune+phone=Zunephone? who cares. When Apple did iPod+phone=iPhone it was a new product, a new idea, and a revelation in the phone market. What does a ZunePhone do? Its either going to have to be cheaper then free to take off if all it is is a phone with a zune in it (which is what, an OS and some storage space). Or have something that no other device has, and good luck with that.

Andy Rubin saw that a long time ago, and when Danger was too small to get the big manufacturers to pick up the software he left and did it again with Google buying in. With that brand behind him, he built a software platform that can be used anywhere.

Zune's and iPods and all other mp3 players are already built into Android and many other software platforms today.

I can see Danger OS swap out their music player which is ok, for Zune's brand and I could see the Zune name take over and Danger disappear.
 
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Yeah but you have to ask yourself. Does anyone want this? Zune+phone=Zunephone? who cares. When Apple did iPod+phone=iPhone it was a new product, a new idea, and a revelation in the phone market. What does a ZunePhone do? Its either going to have to be cheaper then free to take off if all it is is a phone with a zune in it (which is what, an OS and some storage space). Or have something that no other device has, and good luck with that.

See as most of us on here are somewhat tech savvy the general population like my parents and a few of my cousins etc are not and all they know is windows they wouldn't know anything else and helping them with their issues I feel like tech support sometimes annoys the hell out of me... now take something that 75% of the population uses/knows and make a product that is essentially brainless to use and sync etc... you have the zune phone not that I would ever consider owning it myself but windows product will have the same effect for brainless windows users as the iphone did for apple fans only a larger population will be hit.... and honestly as I said earlier they need to do something like this or that division of MS will go under soon.... Then there is the standard people are stupid but a person is brilliant saying... if you yell bomb in a room of 100 people 90 of them will run and scream.... if you did in front of 1 person they'll tell you your an idiot and walk away; Microsoft has always gone for the huge crowd to get things going it's the 10% that stop and think that have kept things like linux/apple etc... going. So while I agree it'll be a HUGE P.O.S. most likely it'll still sell because it'd be Microsoft...
 
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Don't get me wrong, I love Microsoft, the MS development and server products pay my bills, but I think they should invest more into XBox than Zune. They are losing ground to PS3 and need to find ways to stop that.

its probably a different department anyways. Just because they're working in the zune department, doesn't mean all the guys in the gaming department stop working and go to zune.
 
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See as most of us on here are somewhat tech savvy the general population like my parents and a few of my cousins etc are not and all they know is windows they wouldn't know anything else and helping them with their issues I feel like tech support sometimes annoys the hell out of me... now take something that 75% of the population uses/knows and make a product that is essentially brainless to use and sync etc... you have the zune phone not that I would ever consider owning it myself but windows product will have the same effect for brainless windows users as the iphone did for apple fans only a larger population will be hit.... and honestly as I said earlier they need to do something like this or that division of MS will go under soon.... Then there is the standard people are stupid but a person is brilliant saying... if you yell bomb in a room of 100 people 90 of them will run and scream.... if you did in front of 1 person they'll tell you your an idiot and walk away; Microsoft has always gone for the huge crowd to get things going it's the 10% that stop and think that have kept things like linux/apple etc... going. So while I agree it'll be a HUGE P.O.S. most likely it'll still sell because it'd be Microsoft...

While this could be true for a small fraction, I think the mobile community is quite different. The iPhone worked because of the market the iPod took. The Zune never had that kind of market share.

WinMo isn't the top smartOS, either, so that won't draw the crowd, either.

its probably a different department anyways. Just because they're working in the zune department, doesn't mean all the guys in the gaming department stop working and go to zune.

That wasn't what I was saying. I was talking about how they invest R&D dollars.
 
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While this could be true for a small fraction, I think the mobile community is quite different. The iPhone worked because of the market the iPod took. The Zune never had that kind of market share.

WinMo isn't the top smartOS, either, so that won't draw the crowd, either.

I agree they are not going to have the same shock impact but what I was referring to is the average Joe think about how many people DO NOT have smart phones these are the people who will be interested in the zune phone they will just see windows logo not all the fancy gadgets or otherwise and think wow I can use that... It's been my experience that people either embrace change or eventually cave in and change and it's the people who resist now that will go with the least resistance later... the Zune phone because it'll be what they know because by then everything else will be so developed that it will be culture shock! I'm sure a few of you have friends with some old crappy phone who just refuse to get a new one those are the ones who will own it....
 
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Honestly guys, whether it's a piece of crap or not, marketing is gonna play the biggest role. They need to build hype for this thing like no other. I'm sure I could get millions of people to buy my poop if I marketed it right. People that are not like us and don't sit on the internet researching and reading about what ACTUALLY is a great product are gonna get sucked in by advertising. Sad to say, but we live in a very impressionable society.
 
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Honestly guys, whether it's a piece of crap or not, marketing is gonna play the biggest role. They need to build hype for this thing like no other. I'm sure I could get millions of people to buy my poop if I marketed it right. People that are not like us and don't sit on the internet researching and reading about what ACTUALLY is a great product are gonna get sucked in by advertising. Sad to say, but we live in a very impressionable society.

Apples spends more than Microsoft currently on marketing and they both spend in the billions, I think Apple's last report was 3.6 billion. Engadget just reported this due to that I'm a Mac commercial ripping Microsoft for spending money on ads instead of fixing Vista. And Microsoft has more cash on hand than any other company in the country, so they could spend it if needed.
 
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Apples spends more than Microsoft currently on marketing and they both spend in the billions, I think Apple's last report was 3.6 billion. Engadget just reported this due to that I'm a Mac commercial ripping Microsoft for spending money on ads instead of fixing Vista. And Microsoft has more cash on hand than any other company in the country, so they could spend it if needed.

Exactly. So Microsoft could definitely advertise the hell out of this thing.
 
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Regardless of what's been said if they don't get in the market with a phone like that their mobile OS will slowly go away and eventually die.... they are in a position now where they are the underdog.... Think about it, Apple and Android will become industry standard very soon if they don't and maybe even if they do..... and if that happens well the trickle down effect would take place hurting them in PC sales etc... They are like a chain only as strong as their weakest link....
 
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Their biggest hurdle is the same one that has kept the Zune from taking off and what has made the iPhone so popular: it won't be compatible with iTunes. People aren't going to want an mp3 phone that won't play their music. I have a Zune but have stayed away from iTunes and the Zune Marketplace specifically because of DRM'd files. I also am probably in the minority.

iTunes is king of the mp3 hill and people aren't going to go through the hassle of changing over their collection to accomodate some new device. I realize more and more sites are removing drm from their files but it is a slow process and the Zune phone will have to be special in a different way to get over that hurdle.
 
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See as most of us on here are somewhat tech savvy the general population like my parents and a few of my cousins etc are not and all they know is windows they wouldn't know anything else and helping them with their issues I feel like tech support sometimes annoys the hell out of me... now take something that 75% of the population uses/knows and make a product that is essentially brainless to use and sync etc... you have the zune phone not that I would ever consider owning it myself but windows product will have the same effect for brainless windows users as the iphone did for apple fans only a larger population will be hit.... and honestly as I said earlier they need to do something like this or that division of MS will go under soon.... Then there is the standard people are stupid but a person is brilliant saying... if you yell bomb in a room of 100 people 90 of them will run and scream.... if you did in front of 1 person they'll tell you your an idiot and walk away; Microsoft has always gone for the huge crowd to get things going it's the 10% that stop and think that have kept things like linux/apple etc... going. So while I agree it'll be a HUGE P.O.S. most likely it'll still sell because it'd be Microsoft...

I agree. I think if MS wants to make a "free" zunephone that is a good mp3 player, video player, textmessaging, email, web browsing device, and get a cell provider to hook the up with a discounted "data" plan for youtube-ing and lolcatz, then i think they have something that people who would rather have someting cheaper that does all the web stuff the smarter phones do but don't want to shell out a ton on a phone and data plan each month, they could sell millions of them.
 
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Don't get me wrong, I love Microsoft, the MS development and server products pay my bills, but I think they should invest more into XBox than Zune. They are losing ground to PS3 and need to find ways to stop that.

Let Apple do the music thing. MacOS will never hold a good enough market share to truly challenge Windows.

Focus on Windows, Office, Server, and XBox. Those 4 pillars will keep Microsoft comfortable for many more years.

I know this is a bit of a sidetrack... but what makes you say the PS3 is catching up? The 360 is outselling the PS3 fairly consistently (about 2 to 1 since the price dro). The MS gaming division (which includes the Zune) has posted a profit for 3+ fiscal quarters while Sony's gaming division has been loosing millions. Most of the big name multiplatform games lead on the 360 (they run better on the 360 and sometimes come out first on the 360) and other titiles have gone exclusive or have exclusive content on the xbox. The 360's game line-up this year has blown away what's available on the PS3 (they basically have Metal Gear Solid and Little Big Planet.... that's mostly it). I'm not saying the battle is over... but the 360 is definitely the favored system of gamers and seems to be doing very very well.

Sorry for the detour... but you make it sound like the 360 is struggling.. but from where I'm standing... it seems to be doing great!
 
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I know this is a bit of a sidetrack... but what makes you say the PS3 is catching up? The 360 is outselling the PS3 fairly consistently (about 2 to 1 since the price dro). The MS gaming division (which includes the Zune) has posted a profit for 3+ fiscal quarters while Sony's gaming division has been loosing millions. Most of the big name multiplatform games lead on the 360 (they run better on the 360 and sometimes come out first on the 360) and other titiles have gone exclusive or have exclusive content on the xbox. The 360's game line-up this year has blown away what's available on the PS3 (they basically have Metal Gear Solid and Little Big Planet.... that's mostly it). I'm not saying the battle is over... but the 360 is definitely the favored system of gamers and seems to be doing very very well.

Sorry for the detour... but you make it sound like the 360 is struggling.. but from where I'm standing... it seems to be doing great!
look at it this way the 360 has crappy hardware but great games,it needs to catch up.. the experience i had with my 360 truly pisses me off to this day..lol, even though i own a ps3 now
 
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I know this is a bit of a sidetrack... but what makes you say the PS3 is catching up? The 360 is outselling the PS3 fairly consistently (about 2 to 1 since the price dro). The MS gaming division (which includes the Zune) has posted a profit for 3+ fiscal quarters while Sony's gaming division has been loosing millions. Most of the big name multiplatform games lead on the 360 (they run better on the 360 and sometimes come out first on the 360) and other titiles have gone exclusive or have exclusive content on the xbox. The 360's game line-up this year has blown away what's available on the PS3 (they basically have Metal Gear Solid and Little Big Planet.... that's mostly it). I'm not saying the battle is over... but the 360 is definitely the favored system of gamers and seems to be doing very very well.

Sorry for the detour... but you make it sound like the 360 is struggling.. but from where I'm standing... it seems to be doing great!


Seriously it's obvious you are a gamer and while I agree the 360 needs work but as most game systems it does have certain advantages to others... Now to get a little back on track.... think of how far phones have come! hell my first cell was like a suite case... it weighed 5 pounds and could not do ANYTHING... then, while in high school the best phone was the startek little crappy phone in today's comparison just think how media, apps and functions will change in the next 5 to 10 years my guess is that in 10 years or less computers phones and tv's will be virtually one device and that means if you aren't doing well now you will have little to no chance in the future... Honestly think about it in the 80 and early 90s people used beepers.....I mean if someone said they had and used a beeper today you'd laugh....
 
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