CrunchGear has some exclusive info on a Zune-enabled phone coming from Microsoft later this year. Hot on the heels of Vista, we can’t be sure if this is a software addition to their current mobile line up or an actual device, but now that they’re in the race with the Zune itself, it makes sense they’ll try to beat the iPhone at its own game. More details to come but check out CrunchGear for what we know now.
I think that will be a nice move from Microsoft. However, the important thing is that whether these phones (iphone or zune phone) will be able to beat Nokia, which is leading the industry with wide range of phone models ?
Microsoft’s venture into the phone business is a positive move. However, displaying a mock copy of the Zune phone playing Megadeth isn’t.
I would rather see Microsoft extend their partnership with HTC to take their PDA Phone and convert it to media player, instead of other way around.
I would like a telephony as the core function to any device I carry around with all the other features added on. They are pretty close with the Cingular 8125/HTC Wizzard phoneset. Just focus on making it easier to use, lighter, bigger screen, bigger storage card or a storage card bank.
Yeah, but will it be as cool as the original Zune Phone?
http://youtube....h?v=WRLRjKCGHek
Look at the major success of the Xbox brand. I think microsoft will be able to be serious competitor to Apple’s $600 black brick. The problem is that ipods are such a small crazed market, where everyone bought the same player.
What microsoft will do is make a Sony PSP-style phone, that integrates gaming, therefore destroying the Apple iPhone. Its the only thing that will do it.
Games are so essential. A Zune gamer phone is their ticket.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that, with Zune, Microsoft is under a continuous pressure to keep up with Apple, in order to shift a market segment from iPod toward their own digital media player.
It still beats me why Microsoft had to re-invent a brand called Zune for mp3 instead of building on the XBox brand. Maybe XPlayer? Or XTunes? I mean sure you’ll get slapped for not having an innovative name – but sheesh, consumers give a sh** about name innovation. They do give a sh** about what brand they’re familiar with and I cannot understand why Microsoft wouldn’t build on XBox.
Well, I prefer to “free my phone” I’m wating for the openmoko.
http://www.openmoko.com/
http://www.open...ress/index.html
Zaid, according to your line of reasoning – they should have gone for Microsoft Windows Gaming System instead of Xbox in the first place.
I agree with that. They should have maintained the X-theme.
I guess Microsoft decided to separate the 2 brands, especially if they’d like to reach out to other markets other than the ones XBox is targeting.
Will it come in baby poo brown?
I’d love to see MS inject fresh innovations in whatever they do, but I’ve been disappointed to see MS continually playing catchup (and weak at it):
live.com to google.com
MSN Adcenter to Google Adwords
Hotmail.com (vaporware Kahuna?) to Yahoo/Gmail
Zune to iPod
Vista to OSX ?
Zunephone to iPhone ?
Internet Explorer 6-7 to Firefox/Opera/etc
C’mon MS, get it together.
HA! funniest thing ever!
#8: I wasn’t writing a philosophical rant but a practical observation. The Windows brand obviously lacked the hip factor needed to get the gamers. For Microsoft, they tried XBox and it WORKED! That’s what matters.
Now why not build on that hip brand that has already worked for you as you continue expansion in that space? That’s what Apple did(with all the iStuff).
-Zaid
Imagine holding that brick next to your ears.
Everyone plays catch up. …off the top of my head.
Atari > Nintendo > Sony > Xbox
Netscape > IE, IE was around before FF
Yahoo Answers > Google Answers (failure)
Myspace > Google Urkot (popular only in Brazil) > MS Wallop
Youtube > GoogTube ($)
Yahoo Finance > Google Finance (failure)
Amazon API > Google API
Blogger > Blogger ($)
MS Virtual Earth > Google
Yahoo Domains > Google Domains
AOL IM > Y! IM > Google IM
Google V Earth > Microsoft V Earth (leapfrogs goog)
Y! Flickr ($) > Google Picasa
Hmm…. Ya, more “Me Too!” moves.
And naming your newest product after your latest failure (The Zune holds a dismal 2% market share!) isn’t a good idea…
Microsoft is steadily moving towards a business model revolving around a hardware and software combination.
However, every step it takes in this direction is yet another step towards losing the trust of current and potential hardware partners.
Microsoft’s insatiable appetite to control everything is going to hastening its very downfall. While Microsoft steadily grows its own hardware and software combos, it is increasingly losing the support and trust of major partners. For example, not one major handset manufacturer has thrown all its weight behind Microsoft Windows Mobile. While some such as Motorola and Samsung do some things “at the edge’, every handset manufacturer knows that what Microsoft did to its former MP3 player partners is what it will eventually also do in the handset market.
NOT THE iPhone KILLER !!!
O no! Here we go again.
Zune Phone:
Potential PROs- Microsoft can pour money, money, money into the project and after many iterations can eventually come up with an average product.
Potential CONs- They will take that average product and sink it with restrictive DRM and overly complicated usability.
I actually saw a guy with a Zune the other day. I got all excited. It was like spotting an ivory-billed woodpecker or something.
They should call this new device the Phune. That should move a lot of units.
Oh c’mon! Do you really think the Zune Marketplace has Megadeth’s Symphony of Destruction?
If I was Steve Ballmer…
I like this news…
despite all the negative opinion of the tech community against Microsoft, I think can play an important role in (hopefully) pushing the market forward (as Apple did with iphone).
Doesn’t it seem a bit redundant to post this on both Techcrunch and Crunchgear? Here’s my reasoning as to why you shouldn’t do this, although I don’t think it’s a terrible idea.
I’m pretty much assuming your posting the story here because Techcrunch is more popular than Crunchgear and you’re trying to get the story as much attention as possible. Now onto why to not post it on techcrunch…
The reason to promote this story as exclusive to Crunchgear is so that people will visit Crunchgear in addition to Techcrunch. But if you post all the “big” stories on crunchgear on techcrunch then it creates a disincentive for people to visit both crunchgear and techcrunch because they know that if there is ever a really big story on Crunchgear then Techcrunch will post the story and they won’t “miss” anything. Furthermore, sites like Digg may link to the techcrunch story because it’s a more popular site, which would only further enhance the popularity of Techcrunch and any resources spent on Crunchgear could more effectively go towards Techcrunch. To that end, since Crunchgear has the “original” story some diggs (I’m using diggs as a euphamism for inbound links in general) will go to Crunchgear and therefore take away from the ones going to Techcrunch. Hence you’ve got both your sites competing against each other. Worse yet, you’ll have competing discussions because people that comment on this post don’t really have an incentive to post on the “other” sites comment board. Fragmenting your users in this way may take away from the overall effectiveness of both stories, again.
I understand you want to promote a sister site, but perhaps just a link without the ability to leave comments or simply a headline that redirects to the appropiate site would be more effective. Keep up the good work on both sites.
iPhone vs. iZune…
I’m sure that the iPhone will have more success, but competition is good for everyone.
I see there is a follow on CrunchGear story about the Zune phone and what technology it might employ.
http://crunchge...ne-phone-style/
Sending rich media content while on the phone seems logical. It certainly seems like Microsoft has been thinking about this for a quite a while.
Why did you mock up the ZunePhone photo with the iPhone body? There’s no way that Microsoft will be able to make their phone look like that. They don’t have the skills.
Plus, it’s unlikely that Microsoft will be able to make a touchscreen ZunePhone. Certainly not a multi-touch ZunePhone since Apple holds almost all of the relevant patents (mostly helped by their purchase of FingerWorks).
Also, Apple will eventually incorporate the multi-touch FingerWorks technology into OS X desktops, and Microsoft will be scrambling to copy it. Though, come to think of it, Microsoft will be at a serious disadvantage since they don’t really control the hardware, and lack the multi-touch patents.
The ZunePhone, Along with cracked screens and blue screens of death, available on November 21, 2007 for $499. Heh.
A bit off subject, but if any TechCrunch people see this, I think you have an error on your home page. The title of the home page is “Techcrunch” when it seems like it should be “TechCrunch”, no big deal, but still
“More details to come but check out CrunchGear for full details.”
Ah. Excellence in journalism.
And asdf – f**k you.
XBOX A SUCCESS> HA HA HA HA HA, Microsoft is losing money everywhere except office and windows. Xbox is an investment they HOPE pays off eventually. They don’t make enough off games sales to cover the losses of XBOX. PS2 STILL BEATS them in sales and makes a ton of money for SONY. WII looks like it will kill them both.
X-Box had it’s run for a couple of years while MS had money to burn and the competition re-tooled. But it’s over now.
Nice phone, why not make it an x-box phone?
Wow, I love it!!
Hahahhaa asdf’s chain letter is actually pretty funny:
“Now Jordan Johnsen was a smart kid and he knew what could happen if he didnt pass it on. He simply pulled a few friends from his buddy list and sent it along. The next day, about that same time, he got a phone call. It said he had won the lottery then his dad came home and bought him a new bike!”
OOOohhhh a new bike!!!
While I realize that most I.t. Folks are hesitant to praise Ms, the cast majority of computer users embrace Ms’s products and will be much more inclined to try a Microsoft product, particularly if it is price advantaged. Younger, more tech intuitive folks will follow apple, but older (entrprise and business) folks may go with Microsoft’s offering withouth ever giving the iphone a bit of consideration.
Slow day in the news
not able to post comments..
Looks like everyone is too focused on Microsoft and Applie iPhone. No one is paying attention to almost 75% cellphone market share (href=”http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/5071535) owned by top 5 phone manufacturers.
Remember Apple is very successful with iPod not only because of it cool looks but also because there was no clear leader in digital MP3 players when it introduced iPod. Also iPod growth is slowing now and that is the reason Apple is trying to introduce new products. It has been trying for a long time to increase it PC market share but with little success.
Similarly Microsoft has been trying since last 4 years to influence cell phone but with little success. We will see what happens now.
Also you guys should not loose sight of Nokia’s cell phone offering in terms of low range, mid range and high range phones. N75 (http://www.noki...=US#product,n75) and N91 (http://www.noki...=US#product,n91).
With similar products from Motorola and Samsung it is not going to be a cakewalk for Apple and Microsoft. Don’t forget to checkout LG’s touchscreen phone (http://www.phon...item.php?n=2034).
Dave
daveylynch@yahoo.com
Looks like everyone is too focused on Microsoft and Applie iPhone. No one is paying attention to almost 75% cellphone market share (href=”http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/5071535) owned by top 5 phone manufacturers.
Remember Apple is very successful with iPod not only because of it cool looks but also because there was no clear leader in digital MP3 players when it introduced iPod. Also iPod growth is slowing now and that is the reason Apple is trying to introduce new products. It has been trying for a long time to increase it PC market share but with little success.
Similarly Microsoft has been trying since last 4 years to influence cell phone but with little success. We will see what happens now.
Also you guys should not loose sight of Nokia’s cell phone offering in terms of low range, mid range and high range phones. N75 (http://www.noki...=US#product,n75) and N91 (http://www.noki...=US#product,n91).
With similar products from Motorola and Samsung it is not going to be a cakewalk for Apple and Microsoft. Don’t forget to checkout LG’s touchscreen phone (http://www.phon...item.php?n=2034).
Dave
I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft licensed the touch screen from Apple. It would be in Apple’s interest to create competition in their new segment of the market.
If they do come out with such a device and use the zune interface it could be interesting to see how it goes. Since Apple is new to this market, we could finally have a battle where both companies start with a clean slate.
errmmm microsoft have been in the phone business for years. and yes, you have been able to use them as mp3 players for years.
article should read: microsoft adding zune (read online shop) functionality to windows mobile.
i love macs, think the iphone looks cool, but sometimes some hardcore believers will distort reality to reinforce their beliefs
Now that is what I call alacrity and movement.
http://www.tekn...ld.blogspot.com
“but now that they’re in the race with the Zune itself”
in the race???
HAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
One thing the ZunePhone certainly won’t have is a fully-functional standards-based browser (that supports CSS2,3) like the iPhone has. Microsoft can’t even get IE7 to fully support CSS2.
The ZunePhone will be very poor for browsing the web.
The Zune is a great looking device but is it just a teaser? what are the features? Am I missing it?
Anyways competing against the IPhone is going to be extremely difficult. They had better come good with the functionality.
Microsoft these days are really a question of following the others and do it better. Live.com for instance promissed alot, but until now we don’t see any great things better than google does. C’mon Microsoft, you have the cash, you’ve the brains, do it now!
TechCrunch,
You should really add a note to this post that the photo isn’t real. It’s a photoshopped iPhone with a Zune screen. Based on some of the comments above, you are clearly confusing people.
Wow…microsoft is behind the ball yet again.
Balmer… Hey I got an idea, lets just follow whatever apple does but come out with it 6 months behind apple. Oh…and lets try to compete in a popularity contest. Don’t they watch the Apple adds with the dork? They just don’t get it do they. Its gonna flop just like Zune…the infamous ipod killer. Wow
Competition is good for the consumer no matter how you slice it. It brings down prices and boosts features. Does anyone remember the memory shortages of the early nineties? Remember paying $50 / meg? I do.
Who cares who was first to the marketplace. What matters is how well your current product performs. Microsoft is a welcome competitor to both the MP3 and cellphone markets.
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