Microsoft, music is not for you
Microsoft, please cease all efforts to compete in the portable music player/online music store space. You're embarassing yourselves.
I remember a time, early on in the iPod's domination, when some bigwig or other at Microsoft slagged off the iTunes Store ecosystem, saying it didn't give customers choice. It didn't take them long to release the Zune and the Zune Marketplace, effectively copying the Apple model wholesale... albeit totally ineffectively.
Oh, and by the way, early on the Zune couldn't play files from Microsoft's partners' stores that used their similar but incompatible PlaysForSure DRM. Oopsies! Needless to say, the devices didn't sell well, but that may be because they were only available in the US, and looked like they were fashioned out of Bakelite.
Then when Apple announced that it was trying to get rid of the DRM the record labels had insisted on, Microsoft were caught on the hop and fumbled a response.
And now their latest bullshit. Now they're trying to put the boot to the iPod by saying their Zune Pass allows you to fill your Zune for less than iTunes allows you to fill your iPod:
http://www.zunepass.net/?WT.mc_id=Display-MMN#/videos
Many, many, many things they neglect to mention here.
1. If you cancel your Zune Pass membership, you do not own that music. You get ten songs free every month, and that's that.
2. They suggest that you can only fill an iPod with music from iTunes. I pay just ten bucks more than their Zune Pass and get 100 DRM-free MP3s from eMusic every month. I also buy CDs, with prices as low as $7 a disc - far less than the $1 per song they quote for the iPod.
3. Not all of the songs in their library are even available with the Zune Pass.
4. Song purchases are slightly cheaper with the Zune Marketplace, but you have to buy fucking point cards in blocks of 400 at a time to shop on their store. You can't use a credit card directly.
I'm not an Apple fanboy. I have many criticisms about their devices and software. However, Microsoft are constantly ragging on them while totally glossing over their own more abundant flaws. The Zune HD looks like an attractive piece of hardware, certainly compared to its siblings, but it is far too little, too late.
