I Swear, The Last Zune Post

BusinessWeek has a new fluff piece on the Zune team at Microsoft. Titled The Soul Of A New Microsoft, the article focuses on J Allard, the driven leader behind the XBox and the Zune.

Here's the thing, Microsoft doesn't need to find their 'un-Vista' they need to stop trying to seize every possible market with half-baked attempts and hope that their name and marketing muscles save, what would otherwise be, nothing but a memory. In creating the Zune, Microsoft created yet another buggy product with the hope that it will get better while convincing some sucker to pay for the development of the next version.

Microsoft didn't build the Zune, they bought the hardware from Toshiba. Microsoft didn't build the model, they watched Apple and then created a wonky version of iTunes, except that they created the obviously deceptive Zune Marketplace which uses points rather than actual money.

A song on the Zune Marketplace costs 79 points, but you can't just buy one song, you have to give Microsoft a $5.00 credit, meaning unless you buy hundreds of songs, you will always leave something in Microsoft's hands. Surely, some dullard will think the Zune Marketplace is cheaper than iTunes without noticing he's spent the same amount of money while giving Microsoft a micro-loan.

So, crappy product, crappy software, and a points system that screws you a penny at a time.


Update: I also ran into Andy Ihnatko's review in the Chicago Sun-Times and his explanation for the Zune Marketplace's goofy points system makes sense. They want you to buy points in $5.00 increments to save money on credit-card processing fees.