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Last updated: Thursday, August 27, 2009

Hindered by a failure to sell large numbers of digital music players, Microsoft is singing a new Zune. A few weeks before releasing a new version of its MP3 player called Zune HD, Microsoft is taking extraordinary steps to court software developers to create applications for the device, which competes with Apple’s hugely successful iPod and iPhone. One developer of a popular iPhone application for reading Twitter messages says Microsoft recently approached him about re-creating the software to run on Zune, with Microsoft footing the bill for development costs. The programmer declined, but Microsoft’s offer speaks to the company’s legendary persistence at trying to make successes out of products that fail to excite customers the first or second time around. Along with Zune HD, Microsoft is making a Zune service available for delivering movies to Microsoft’s Xbox video game console. A Zune-branded music service for the Xbox, cell phones, and PCs is in the works as well. “The business is entertainment,” says Brian Seitz, group marketing manager with Microsoft Zune. “The mobile device or the MP3 player is just one screen that can use the service. To erase the iPod is not what the vision was. The business is the service.” A Seven-Year Project Microsoft’s dogged pursuit of success with Zune is a classic example of the company’s willingness to keep investing in markets it sees as strategically important, even if early attempts to capture share fall short. Microsoft kept improving its Windows operating system for servers, SQL Server database, and Web search engine for years before having respectable products in those markets. Same goes for Zune, according to Microsoft. “When Zune was born, it was looked at as at least a seven-year project,” says Seitz. The project may pay dividends beyond the actual device. Microsoft considers Zune important to its foray into handheld computer…

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Microsoft Now Singing a New Zune

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