After days of online leaks, Microsoft finally released specs for its new Zune HD, the media player it hopes will take a few points of market-share away from the iPod.
That'll be a bit of an uphill battle, to say the least. According to one research note issued by NPD Group, the Zune line holds roughly 2 percent of the portable media-player market, compared with the iPod at around 70 percent. At the start of 2009, a quarterly Microsoft filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission noted that Zune platform revenue had decreased $100 million, or 54 percent, from the same quarter in fiscal 2008.
But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stood on that stage at the Worldwide Partner Conference in July and hollered about how the company will be "tenacious," and evidently that applies not only to Windows 7 but also portable-media players where you can have a grinning skull etched on the back, in order to satisfy your inner Goth 14-year-old.
Actually, the chance to have a pattern engraved on the back of the Zune HD is one of its more unique features. The rest of them focus more on taking the iPod Touch head-on: both versions of the Zune HD, 16GB and 32GB, will be sold at respective prices of $219.99 and $289.99 in what seems a very deliberate undercutting of Apple's prices (the iPod Touch retails for $299 and $399 for its 16GB and 32GB versions, respectively).
The Zune HD will also offer touch-screen capability and Wi-Fi, again features that were signatures of the iPod Touch. However, Microsoft's device also includes a few twists, notably the integrated HD radio receiver (which allows users to access programming through HD2 and HD3 multicast channels) and the HD video output capabilities (which support HD video playback from a HDMI A/V docking station (not included) to an HDTV in 720p).
Much of this information, of course, already leaked on Amazon.com and other sites. Pre-order begins Aug. 13, while in-store sales are slated to begin Sept. 15.
The big question, of course, is whether the new Zune HD will gain any traction. The problem that confronts Microsoft here, ironically enough, similar to the dynamic in play with the Bing vs. Google matchup: Your product might match or exceed the capabilities of a rival's, but if users are already happily using the latter, they have little impetus to jump ship for your offering.
