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Microsoft Media Music

Zune Sales Not So Bad After All 366

Posted by samzenpus from the on-second-thought dept.
pyrbrand writes "Despite the iFanboy jabber that Zune sales were horrific, CNN has a story to the contrary. Turns out Zune was the #2 Digital Audio player in its first week of sales. Not a bad start for the challenger to the iPod throne. As others have pointed out the Amazon sales rank may have been thrown off by Zune sales being divided between the three colors."
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Zune Sales Not So Bad After All More

Zune Sales Not So Bad After All

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  • divided sales (Score:5, Insightful)

    by senatorpjt ( 709879 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:06PM (#17044134)
    Aren't the sales for ipods also divided between all the various models and colors?

    • Re:divided sales (Score:5, Informative)

      by soft_guy ( 534437 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:14PM (#17044236)
      Aren't the sales for ipods also divided between all the various models and colors?
       
       
      Yes - every SKU that is different is a different product. So, for example, the red nano is one product. The black nano is another product. The black and white 30GB video iPod are two products. And so on.

      • Re:divided sales (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kripkenstein ( 913150 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @03:30AM (#17046100) Homepage
        [...]the red nano is one product. The black nano is another product. The black and white 30GB video iPod are two products. And so on.

        Yes, but this isn't the main way in how the report was misleading. The main problem is that TFA mentions (according to one analysis) 2nd place for the Zune, with 9% of the market, which places it before SanDisk and after Apple. Yet no numbers are given for Sandisk or Apple. For all we know, the numbers are 70% Apple, 9% Zune, 8.99% SanDisk. According to the other analysis, Zune had 7%, putting it behind SanDisk, which supports the theory that their market shares are very close.

        In addition, we don't know who the 7-9% was taken out of. If all of it came out of Apple's share, that is one thing, but if it came out of Microsoft's former PlaysForSure partners, mainly SanDisk, then it is another. TFA simply does not go into any detail here.

        So, TFA has nothing to dispute the theory, mentioned many times in the past on Slashdot, that the Zune will indeed be a 'killer', but mainly a PlaysForSure-killer, not an iPod-killer. On the contrary, that theory seems to be partially borne out by TFA and the blanks it doesn't fill in.

        IMO, in the short term the non-iPod market will be much simpler to encroach on than the iPod one. Yet, given time and Microsoft's endless pockets, we eventually see a change in the long run.

    • Re:divided sales (Score:5, Informative)

      by earnest murderer ( 888716 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:33PM (#17044402)
      Indeed.

      In fact, when I posted this comment there were 10 iPod moddels in the overall top 25 (not just electronics) and no Zune. Certainly this changes regularly, but come on... There are even 2 other players in that first page list. The black Zune doesn't even show up until the third page (63). You have to look up the others directly...
      Brown 285, and White 484

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=209024&op=Repl y&threshold=3&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=170441 34 [slashdot.org]

      The real story here is that someone is buying the brown one. ;P

      But seriously, maybe it's selling well, but only if you count the first day sales (and not too many more days) does it compete with an iPod.

      • Re:divided sales (Score:5, Funny)

        by TheDugong ( 701481 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:53PM (#17044534)
        "The real story here is that someone is buying the brown one. ;P"

        Camoflage when the drop down an airliner's toilet?

      • Re:divided sales (Score:5, Insightful)

        by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @01:17AM (#17045314)
        Well, if you read the fine print of the article you notice some interesting things. First, they say it's the #2 player in it's first four days of sales, not the first week. Since you'd expect sales to be highest on the first day the product is released and then to decrease from there as pent-up demand is met, I'd imagine that a full week's worth of sales data would show the Zune performing more poorly.


        Also, that's just one company's data. The article goes on to say, "Another research agency, Current Analysis, reported a somewhat similar sales reading during the same week. For the same week ending November 18, 2006, the Zune took 7 percent of the MP3 player market, falling behind both Apple and Sandisk.". So other statistics suggest that the Zune may only have been able to hit the #3 spot in the first week of sales. Again, this is going up against models that have been out for some time.

        But the really important thing to keep in mind is who we're dealing with and their original goal. These would be good sales for a new company, but for an established behemoth with the clout of Microsoft, and given their goal of producing an "iPod killer", this is a pretty lame showing. If anybody is being fanboyish here, it's people who are saying that not doing quite as horrifically awful as people predicted is some kind of victory for Microsoft. Not to say that you can count Microsoft out; they'll doubtless release improved versions. But first impressions count for a lot, as Apple learned that the hard way with Newton. Although Apple eventually produced a good PDA, the Newton never recovered from the bad press and bad reviews that the initial, not-ready-for-prime-time models received.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mwvdlee ( 775178 )
          I couldn't agree more.

          I don't think the Zune is a particularly good device (FYI, I don't own any MP3 player and think the iPod is overprices) but I'd atleast have thought the fanboys and gadget freaks would have put it firmly at #1 for the first week. Just like any new product in this market by a well-known vendor tends to do.

          Having it launch at #2, or perhaps even worse, seems like the first nail in it's coffin.

          MS will have to take some drastic measures, like loosening DRM and making wireless useful or per

    • Re:divided sales (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shads ( 4567 ) <shadusNO@SPAMshadus.org> on Thursday November 30, 2006 @01:10AM (#17045240) Homepage Journal
      They're also missing the fact that a lot of clueless parents are going to be buying these for their kids for xmas and then are going to be returning them AFTER xmas for an iPod.

  • As the saying goes... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:06PM (#17044140)
    There is a sucker born every minute ...

    • Re:As the saying goes... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Walt Dismal ( 534799 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @03:49AM (#17046178)
      In related news, 63,000 Microsoft employees returned their Zunes to the company store, saying, "I'll work for Microsoft, but there's a limit to how much torture I'll take."

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Fred_A ( 10934 )
      There is a sucker born every minute ...
      Which is why Microsoft decided to sell squirters... :) They should go together like... ah, um, like things that go together very well ! :)

      "Hey, suck on this squirt !"

  • I thought I would point out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fahrvergnuugen ( 700293 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:07PM (#17044148) Homepage
    That a RECORD PLAYER [amazon.com] is over a dozen places higher in the list than the top selling Zune.

    • Thanks! I can finally pirate my records! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by KalvinB ( 205500 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:20PM (#17044286) Homepage
      In all seriousness that's actually a great gift for someone with an old record collection which is pretty much everyone over 40 or 50.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by blueadept1 ( 844312 )
        Or... let me think... DJ's with thousands of albums that they want to convert to CD or MP3 for DJing instead?
      • In the early 90's I decided to join the tech audio revolution and I got rid of an eclectic lp collection that spanned more than a thirty year period. Stan Getz, Herbie Mann, Cannonball Adderley, Leonard Kwan, Carlos Montoya, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed and on and on.

        No cd ever sounded as good to me as an lp and it makes me sick that I was so stupid as to part with them. I'll bet the guy that bought them is still pretty happy with his purchase though.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Sique ( 173459 )
          There are filters that recreate the LP sound for any digital media (in fact it's just a low pass filter cutting at 16 kHz, a filter to get the dynamic down to 60 dB from the 96dB a CD offers, and some sound engines also offer the additional random crack).

          The problem with people not liking the CD sound is that of education: During your whole childhood you had the HiFi LP as the right sound. Now something with a different characteristic comes out (more dynamic, higher frequencies), and of course this sounds "

      • Bad Coding (Score:4, Funny)

        by gsslay ( 807818 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @06:48AM (#17046950)
        In all seriousness that's actually a great gift for someone with an old record collection which is pretty much everyone over 40 or 50.

        How many people do you think falls into the category of being over 50 but not 40?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Guanine ( 883175 )
      You must have read Mr. Gruber's thoughts [daringfireball.net] on these Amazon Zune sales, as he said the exact same thing about the record player.

    • Re:I thought I would point out (Score:5, Funny)

      by moochfish ( 822730 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:44PM (#17044472)
      How about the fact that an apple sleeve accessory [amazon.com] is destroying it by over 30 slots?
    • Maybe people are buying these to copy their collection over to the Zune...

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by thombone69 ( 771957 )
      Vinyl kicks ass. Still sounds better than CDs. MUCH warmer.

      • MUCH warmer.

        "Warmer" is a code word for "distorted". You may like the effect of the distortion -- but it's still distortion, and not the way the sound is intended to be heard. See also: tube amps.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by 14CharUsername ( 972311 )

          Doesn't it depend on the sound engineer doesn't it? If you're talking about a sound engineer in the 60's or 70's they were intending the music to be heard on vinyl, and would compensate for that. So it was intended to be heard on vinyl. A sound engineer today would be intending stuff to be heard on CDs, so the vinyl version wouldn't be how it was intended to be heard. Now some albums from the 60's and 70's have been remastered, in which case (depending on the skills of the people doing the remastering) th

  • No matter how you put it... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by IANAAC ( 692242 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:08PM (#17044164)
    Someone will always come back and refute you.

    That's the nature of statistics.

    And fanboys.

    • Someone will always come back and refute you.

      That's the nature of statistics.

      And fanboys.

      Theres lies, damn lies and fanboys.

      I like it.

  • What other competition? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MMC Monster ( 602931 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:09PM (#17044172)
    I am a touch surprised that it beat out sandisk, since sandisk sells more at amazon.
  • The situation with Zune/iPod is no different than the situation with Office/ODF. *More* real choices = better for the consumer and lower prices by all! We need a serious challenger to Apple for no other reason than to force them to cross that final frontier - playing nicely with everyone else (i.e., not forcing their product chain down our throats with restrictive DRM). Once their current feature-set become commoditized, they'll have no choice but to add interoperability as a feature to differentiate the
    • And I hate to reply to myself here, but I can't help but wonder if Apple is making the same mistake they made before - creating a closed-technology stack for short term profits. I can't really argue against Jobs for doing this (he's a billionaire after all), but as was proven in the old days of the Apple, eventually the competition catches up and cuts you off at the knees. There's something to be said for playing nicely with everyone.

    • The situation with Zune/iPod is no different than the situation with Office/ODF

      I suppose if your talking DRM only then you are correct. Apple holds a monopoly on the idiocy of DRM in digital music stores and players. But the last thing we need is another player with competing DRM, we need to get rid of DRM altogether.

      The market for MP3 players is highly competitive, Zune brings nothing new to the market and is simply a Microsoft me too product. It will make no difference in fair use for music consumers and

      • Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:48PM (#17044500)
        Apple's music store has DRM, but there isn't any anywhere else. The Zune adds DRM to your un-DRMed songs for you. Plus the music industry royalty, that they're now pressuring Apple to add. Seems like a definite step backward.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ucklak ( 755284 )
          You can call it the music industry royalty but we all know it's a pirate tax.

          One good reason why it's a dumb idea for others to pay it is because (take the iPod for example) other devices can be used as external drives.

          If I were to use an iPod as a portable drive for my camera, should I have to pay a royalty for that?

          • Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Firehed ( 942385 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @12:28AM (#17044826) Homepage
            While I agree in principle with you, iPods are designed to be used as portable audio players. Being able to use them as an external drive is a bonus, not an advertised feature. On the other hand, the blank CD tax in Canada is truly unfair, because blank media is designed to be used in a large number of ways, NOT just audio. I think of the last 200 CDs I've burned, about five were audio (and MP3 CDs at that, which is a data disc on a technicality). Since finding that old cassette adapter that I plug into my iPod, I've had no need for audio CDs.

            And for the sake of Devil's Advocate, you should (by the industry's logic) be forced to pay a royalty for using your iPod as a portable drive for your camera. Not for the music, but for the painfully high chance that you've snapped a shot that included something copyrighted... basically anything with a backdrop other than a landscape (ads plastered everywhere, any branded products, etc). Just like the painfully high chance you infringed copyright of (not stole... they still have their copy!) music, right?

            Don't get me wrong. The idea sucks, and is downright offensive to almost everyone who actually buys music. But a piracy tax on iPods DOES make more sense than blank media taxes, simply due to intended use. As far as I'm concerned, Apple shouldn't have to pay them a cent as long as they keep the "Don't steal music." sticker on the front (nor should any other brand). As far as I'm concerned, such a tax legitimizes piracy - a Slashdot post I read earlier today indicated that this logic held up in Canadian court. I'd be all for the idea if I didn't know that the logic couldn't possibly hold up in a court system as screwed up as our (US) own.

    • Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl (Score:5, Insightful)

      by abes ( 82351 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:36PM (#17044420) Homepage
      Normally I would agree with you .. it would be nice for Apple to have pressure to do new better stuff with their ipod besides make it smaller and redder. But, and this pains me to say, in this case Apple seems to have actually done good with their dictatorship (it pains me to say dictatorships are good, rather than saying something bad about Apple).

      See the related ./ stories, but because M$ caved into Universal, it's now causing issues for Apple. Apple was the only company willing to fight for a flat rate for the consumer and make it work. If it weren't for Apple's iTunes store, buying music onlne would still really suck.

      And no, I don't like DRM'd crap, but I do like our environment better, and don't care to pollute it with more CDs that I'm just going to rip. Would I rather just because to get plain MP3s. Yeah, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon. From personal experience, Apple's DRM is pretty decent, and only got in the way once, where I had to deauthorize all my computers.

      So in this case, competition actually isn't looking good for consumer's rights, primarily because most consumers buying these things aren't well informed.
    • I want it to fail because it is unacceptable that by adding your own non-DRM'ed music to it that the Zune puts it under DRM.

      Say I'm an artist. I put my own music on my Zune. Then I beam it to someone else's Zune (squirt just sounds dumb). By Microsoft's reckoning, that person can only listen 3 days or 3 plays. Whichever comes first. What gives Microsoft the right to determine the conditions under which I get to distribute my music?

    • Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl (Score:5, Insightful)

      by illumin8 ( 148082 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:55PM (#17044562) Journal
      The situation with Zune/iPod is no different than the situation with Office/ODF. *More* real choices = better for the consumer and lower prices by all! We need a serious challenger to Apple for no other reason than to force them to cross that final frontier - playing nicely with everyone else (i.e., not forcing their product chain down our throats with restrictive DRM).
      Seriously wtf are you smoking? The Zune has DRM that is way more restrictive than the iPod. Songs that expire? Your own bands music that can be splooged (or whatever they call it) to somebody wirelessly but they can't keep it and it expires after they listen to it 3 times?

      How you can compare the DRM infested Zune with ODF is beyond me. One is an open document specification that could enable people on different OS, hardware, or software to exchange files, the other is a closed platform music player with DRM so restrictive that your entire music collection can auto-delete itself because you forgot to pay your monthly bill...

    • Apple has real competition already (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @12:05AM (#17044632)
      Apple has had some good competition already - the Archos players, the Creative stuff and the Sandisk. Each of those has brought something interesting to the table and made Apple keep advancing.

      What has the Zune brought that's new? WiFi sharing that is so limited it does not exist, and the standard now that EVERY MP3 player going forward will be pressed by labels to pay a small fee just for the right to exist! Has the existance of the Zune REALLY improved the market in any way?

      Competition is great, but Microsoft left the door wide open for the RIAA to get a foot in. For that alone they deserve endless scorn and market failure.
      • Actually, right now only Creative and Sandisk are serious competitors with a wide model range in the non-iPod portable music player market. They sell very nice players ranging from inexpensive to full-featured top end models, and of course both the Creative and Sandisk players work with the Microsoft Play for Sure DRM scheme, which is the DRM system used by most legal online music download sites outside of the iTunes Music Store.

        But watch out for Samsung, though. Their newly-released YP-T9 series portable m

    • The #1 reason to hate the Zune (Score:5, Insightful)

      by loqi ( 754476 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @12:11AM (#17044670)
      There is a very simple reason to both avoid purchase of the Zune and pray to 42 that it fails. For every Zune sale, the record industry gets a cut. If you buy a Zune, you are propping up the RIAA. You are essentially paying a tax that assumes you are guilty of copyright infringement before you've even committed it (and of course you could get still get sued by the RIAA even after paying the absurd tax). This should sound familiar to Canadians.
    • I don't know why people want it to fail so badly..

      Because it's crippled with DRM, it doesn't "play for sure" and there's no love lost for MS in general.

      We need a serious challenger to Apple for no other reason than to force them to cross that final frontier - playing nicely with everyone else (i.e., not forcing their product chain down our throats with restrictive DRM).

      THE ZUNE'S DRM IS WORSE THAN MICROSOFTS! If the Zune actually did well, you would see the opposite of what you are hoping for.

    • Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eclectic4 ( 665330 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @01:00AM (#17045152)
      "i.e., not forcing their product chain down our throats with restrictive DRM)"

      As other have pointed out one billion times, Apple doesn't force restrictive DRM on anyone. You can use your iTunes and iPod without one illegal, low quality, DRM'd file.
      Not one. I can buy 1000 CD's from my local music store, RIP them, and have iTunes synch them to my iPod und DRM'd, legally (unlike the Zune's software counterpart).

      If you wish to purchase songs legally for download via the internets, iTunes not only has a far more sane DRM scheme than almost all others, but I've never fealt restricted by it. Not one bit. I can burn CD's, copy them to other computers (5 a year... do you need to reasonably have them on more?), and can even RIP those burned CD's to produce non-DRM'd iTunes purchased songs.

      I have no idea why people still claim this.

  • Returns (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:09PM (#17044178)
    They haven't accounted for returns though ;-)

  • Raises the question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:10PM (#17044184) Journal
    Microsoft's newest MP3 player, which launched just over two weeks ago, took second place in the portable digital player market in its first four days of sales, according to numbers generated by the market research firm NPD Group.
    Who took first place & why couldn't MS beat them?

    IMO, it isn't exactly fair to compare "Zune" with "ALL of the iPods".
    The Zune targets one small slice of territory that Apple has already staked out.

  • Not there yet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LaughingCoder ( 914424 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:12PM (#17044216)
    Personally I believe the WiFi feature will be a difference-maker, but as currently implemented on the Zune it isn't very enticing. I expect MS to come out with a software update in 6 months or so that will dramatically improve the wireless functionality. I used the early Smartphones and they had similar rough edges - they were clunky and missing many "obvious" features. But MS kept plugging along and now they have a very competitive phone operating system. With their resources and long-term view I figure they will ultimately make the Zune a formidible competitor to the iPod franchise. We also should remember that it's still early yet in this game. Portable media players only last about 3-4 years, so we haven't even really seen the first big replacement wave yet.
    • If iPod came out with the WiFi feature with the local radio reception, Zune is done.

    • "..the WiFi feature will be a difference-maker.."

      In marketing they call this differentiation. Differentiation is important to gain market share. Differentiation is the modification of a product to make it more attractive to the target market. Microsoft does not want the Zune to appear like the Ipod to people, they want it to seem as unique as possible (while still appealing to the same market).

      In my opinion they have done a decent job of differentiation base on the marketing mix: price, promotion, prod
    • Your fooling yourself if you think MS will do a software update. They don't own the sourcecode. The Zune is just a crappy repackage of the Toshiba Gigabeat S. The round wheel is still a D-Pad. It's a faux scroll wheel! If they want a software update it'll involve paying Toshiba to do the coding and MS won't just give it away. They'll just release "Zune: Part Deux" which will just be another incarnation of another failed Toshiba player.

      Oh, and WM Smartphones are still crap. Only groups that consider them c

    • It's a difference maker alright -WiFi Audio Sizzle (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @12:18AM (#17044722)
      ...but not the way you were thinking. In fact what the WiFi gets you besides the ability to music in a very limited manner, is the "WiFi Sizzle" [cnet.com] - a delightful crackle overlaid on your music while WiFi is enabled.

  • Who's the "fanboy"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kopl ( 1027670 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:13PM (#17044232) Journal
    "Despite the iFanboy jabber"

    Did anybody else stop reading after that?

  • Retail Only (Score:5, Insightful)

    by manonthemoon ( 537690 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:14PM (#17044242) Homepage
    Since the numbers are from big box retailers only, they are pretty skewed. No online (no store.apple.com, Amazon, etc), probably not Apple's retail stores either.

    Considering the initial curiosity factor and Microsoft employees, I would have expected the initial uptake to have a bigger impact than even this. If they are starting at this low of a baseline... lets just say Creative and SanDisk probably don't have much to worry about.

    • Since the numbers are from big box retailers only, they are pretty skewed. No online (no store.apple.com, Amazon, etc), probably not Apple's retail stores either.

      This is not true. NPD tracks a number of online retailers (including Amazon.com) as well as many smaller retailers.

      Here is a report from Adobe on NPD numbers. Note: This report is about software sales, but the NPD Techworld division handles Consumer Electronics sales so the vendor list should be similar: http://www.adobe.com/macromedia/ir/macr/whitepaper s/npd_pos.pdf [adobe.com]

      The most significant issue with NPD numbers is that they do not include WalMart (NPD estimates WalMart numbers instead)

  • I personally don't care (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slimjim8094 ( 941042 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:16PM (#17044256)
    They can do whatever they want. I won't buy it, and it doesn't harm me

    Wait, huh? Oh crap, I forgot. Microsoft's "we'll-pay-you-an-'all-our-users-are-thieves'-tax" shenanigans are setting "precedent". Now, everyone else (Apple) is "encouraged" to do the same...

    Damn...

  • irrelevant (Score:4, Insightful)

    by EMeta ( 860558 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:17PM (#17044260)
    I apologise for feeding this troll of an article, but nevertheless.

    Certainly there was some base of people who wanted (some later to be usefull) wi-fi plus an FM receiver plus video at that price point. Microsoft advertized enough that these people knew about it, so they got it when they first had their chance. That group of people, however, is not particularly related to digital music player buyers as a whole, as it is only continuous purchases over its life span that will be untimately meaningful. Furthermore, this week was singled out from the Zune being the only new thing on the market. That they only got second when they were the only new thing around--for over a month or something?--is actually rather sad.

    A more representative week would be, say, the week after Thanksgiving, which shows a lot about retail buying habits (and is a significant percentage of such).

  • #2 First Week != #2 overall (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dragon of the Pants ( 913545 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:32PM (#17044396) Homepage
    It's a new gadget and it was hyped to the extreme. Obviously it';s going to sell well. The sad thing is the new product buzz didn't stop people from buying "old" iPods at a FAR larger rate. And the study doesn't even include iPods sold in Apple Stores, which is a huge bias. Look at where the Zune is now. It's nowhere. Nice try, but the numbers don't mean a damn thing unless they're sustainable.

  • #2! (Score:2)

    by Erris ( 531066 )

    How appropriate for a brown music player that reviewers have advised people to "avoid". More appropriate is the speed with which sales fell to 20th and worse. [slashdot.org] Zune is a turd boosted only by enormous hype. It lasted a day or so then died. The only way Zune sales are going anywhere is if Microsoft buys their own production for the next few months. Given how M$ has stabbed all of their previous music partners in the back, the whole industry should hate it. This player has less hope of success than Dell's

  • Amazon sales figures DID match (Score:4, Informative)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:53PM (#17044544)
    The first week, the Zune was indeed in the top ten at Amazon - it's only after that the sales dropped like a rock to the current place below 50th. So what the article is saying is not inconsistent with what was observed from Amazon sales rank.

    So the article is only telling us what we already knew from reviewing Amazon sales - sales were good the first week, when the media blitz worked but before word of mouth cooled opinion.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by laffer1 ( 701823 )
      Microsoft often has trouble selling the first or second generation of a product. Look how long it took to get Windows on desktops or to get Windows Mobile going? xbox 1.0 was the sega dreamcast as it ran windows ce. The xbox 360 is now somewhat popular. I like the iPod, but I think Microsoft will eventually gain marketshare. Wait until revision two or three and see where the zune sells. I suspect sandisk will put a dent in apple's sales over the next year as I hear about them increasingly. The zune w

  • Its all downhill from the first week. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kerouacsgp ( 516242 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:55PM (#17044560)
    "#2 Digital Audio player in its first week of sales" Its only the first week. Products usually post their strongest numbers when they launch. Let's see their numbers after 1 year of sales.

  • Never a doubt that Zune would be number 2 (Score:5, Funny)

    by skingers6894 ( 816110 ) on Wednesday November 29, 2006 @11:56PM (#17044568)
    Its just that Microsoft had to trample over the battered bodies of their "plays for sure" partners to get there.

  • Zune not advertised as MS product? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WMD_88 ( 843388 ) <kjwolff8891@yahoo.com> on Thursday November 30, 2006 @12:03AM (#17044606) Homepage Journal
    I've seen a lot of Zune ads. None of them mention Microsoft at all. Anywhere. I wonder if this is MS admitting that they have no mindshare. Or maybe the "cool" factor doesn't go with their corporate logo.

  • MS blew it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NTesla ( 99917 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @12:07AM (#17044642)
    Microsoft has enough employees who will have to buy their crappy product (to show company spirit) to stay in the top 3 for at least another two weeks. And then it's over.
    Apple wasn't the first out to market with an mp3 player but unlike MS they did their research. Every new generation of Ipod gets better its interface is extremely easy to learn and use. Itunes is not bad and I went out and bought 5th gen video ipod just because of how easy it is to subscribe to podcasts (G4, SG, etc) and ease of keeping everything in sync.
    I purchased the very second mp3 player that became commercially available in USA - Diamond Rio PMP300 in 1998 and Creative Lab's Nomad ][ a little bit later. Both were not great and the first suffered from slow transfer speed and second from just-ok interface but at least both products worked out of the box and I didn't have to wait a year for some feature that was promised to start working - NO wireless sync with PC(even my old motorola e680i phone can do this via bluetooth), crippled song "sharing" and no Vista support YET even though Vista is shipping in a month to PC manufacturers. Very rushed - feels like a pot-luck dinner.
    Finally, I think MS blew it because they are a software company first and they couldn't even write (OR STEAL) something decent. They only had 10 year to sit there and watch everyone else do it. I feel bad for Toshiba, they didn't really need this.
    I guess they didn't learn from Panasonic's 3DO fiasco where Trip Hawking tricked them into giving his company $100 million to blow on a video game system that didn't sell well.
  • Boo.Com
    Daikatana
    PC Jr.
    The Mac TV
    The Performa 52xx/62xx series of Macs
    Windows Millenium Edition, aka WindowsME
    and...
    Zune.
    'Nuff said.

  • Waiting for the T-Shirt (Score:3, Funny)

    by hirschma ( 187820 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @12:08AM (#17044652)
    "All I got for Xmas was a Brown Zune"
  • seriously, it's nice that there's an article and all that uses the word iFanboy, but can we get a real /. article? Who's asking the important questions like "Yeah, but does it run linux?"

  • A new tag suggestion - "zuneral" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @12:21AM (#17044768)
    Let us all help the band play merrily along while the Zune ship slides into the murky waters of consumer disinterest, by labeling this and all subsequent Zune trolling articles with the flag "zuneral".
  • It's entirely normal and predictable that an early adopter market would generate sales, not to mention people falling for media hype. However, once said early adopters realise how crippled the system is for both playing and sharing music, the existing units sold will go in the bin, and then word of mouth will prevent further sales from occurring.

    The single main thing about the FSF's unreasoning, foetal position terror of DRM that has always irked me is that they don't give Joe Six-Pack enough credit. Yes,

  • The favourite recipe of talentless journalists (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gyarados ( 893032 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @12:49AM (#17045044)
    1. Take any common conception.
    2. Create an article which suggests that the opposite of your chosen conception is actually true.
    3. Reference and quote from any research which supports your argument, regardless of its lack of validity or corroboration.
    4. If no supporting research exists, justify your argument using pseudoreasoning instead.
    5. Optionally insert some unfounded predictions.
    6. Insert a generous number of advertisements.
    7. Bathe in your inflated sense of self-esteem.

  • lol (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @04:09AM (#17046284) Homepage Journal
    the Amazon sales rank may have been thrown off by Zune sales being divided between the three colors.

    You mean, like the iPod sales being divided between 14 or so models and colours?

    Yes, the zune's initial week was fairly good. If you read just a little further on any mainstream press article, however, you'll see that the total failure was attributed not to first week sales, but to the fact that after all the fanboys and easy-to-fool idiots had bought one, sales dropped to almost nothing. The same Amazon sales rank that was #2 in the first week was #13 in the second if I recall correctly. Right now, it's #60 [amazon.com], which definitely qualifies as "abysmal". The 4 GB silver nano [amazon.com], the lowest listed iPod model, beats it jumping on one leg with both hands tied behind its back (rank #15).

    Sorry, MS fanboy, zune is as dead as a doornail and twice as hard to sell.

  • Reports be damned (Score:4, Informative)

    by eWarz ( 610883 ) on Thursday November 30, 2006 @05:33AM (#17046616)
    My day job has me working retail, and I'll have to say that the iPods are running circles around the zune. We've sold 1 zune since the first shipment came in and we've already gone through about 40 ipods. I DON'T think Apple has anything to worry about.

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