[RUMOR] Microsoft's Joe Belfiore Working On New Zune Hardware?

[lem7]

@daglesj

Cmon man, have some faith =) Yes Zune may be years apart but all it means is that Zune has alot of catching up to do, Look at WP7 and how far it came.

Just remember we as Consumers love market competition =)

[daglesj]

Originally Posted by lem7

@daglesj

Cmon man, have some faith =) Yes Zune may be years apart but all it means is that Zune has alot of catching up to do, Look at WP7 and how far it came.

Just remember we as Consumers love market competition =)

Sorry matey, the Zune concept has become like that friend who always says they will show up to the game or whatever but always lets you down when the time comes.

You only let that happen so many times before you walk away.

I notice many names that were big Zune commenters here just a year ago who are absent from these discussions. They have moved on.

It's going to take The Second Coming to get folks back in the flock.

[bluecnc]

Or new consumers. I admit, when I found out the limitations of my ZuneHD, I was bummed. I thought that it competed with the Touch. So sorry. Different animals. As refined as the HD is, it would be nice to have more features. Like being able to play web content or have a speaker when I don't want something in my ears. Or blue tooth. Yes, I know I can get all that in a phone. I am not going to spend $30.00 a month for the privilege. And get stuck in a contract for two years. My phone makes calls just fine thank you. When my battery goes on the Zune I hope there will be the next gen of Zune on the market. I will not support Apple. My children do that.

[Machiventa]

It looks like most of you missed clubdirthill's post. The article is rehashing a job title bio that was written years ago.

Originally Posted by lem7

Look at WP7 and how far it came.

You're kidding right? How far it came? I only know a few people who even know that there is a new windows phone and they are so enamored with their iphones and android devices that they could care less. I mean it looks like a decent OS with a lot of potential and there apparently are a few companies willing to (somewhat) back up WP7 (AT&T, Verizon, Nokia, Dell, etc) but I don't see any substantial evidence pointing to dominance in the market or whatever you're referring to.

[daglesj]

Yeah WM7 will hold about as much market as WM6.5 did.

I noticed a couple of my mates had WM7 phones when they came out, but last time I saw them a few weeks ago they had swapped them out for Android ones.

[unionjack37]

That's weird like every one I know knows about the wp7 and love it. A few of them actually got one and I must say it kicks @$$.

[lem7]

Originally Posted by Machiventa

It looks like most of you missed clubdirthill's post. The article is rehashing a job title bio that was written years ago.




You're kidding right? How far it came? I only know a few people who even know that there is a new windows phone and they are so enamored with their iphones and android devices that they could care less. I mean it looks like a decent OS with a lot of potential and there apparently are a few companies willing to (somewhat) back up WP7 (AT&T, Verizon, Nokia, Dell, etc) but I don't see any substantial evidence pointing to dominance in the market or whatever you're referring to.

WP7 just released like last November and right now it has 10,000+ apps, that is awesome...

[steinburger1109]

Welllll, that kind of app production is promising and shows that devs have taken a liking to the system, but not necessarily that the consumers are. I think MS probably did a better job pitching the WP7 platform to app devs than the consumer market. :/

[Night Surfer]

LOL @ saying " I am NOT a Hater" after saying "The Zune brand may as well be called 'Herpes' it reeks of FAIL."

I don't ever see any ads for Archos, Sony, Sansa, or Cowon players. None. Zip, zilch. Are they epic fail too? Why not? The only difference is your expectations because it happens to be Microsoft.

[lem7]

Originally Posted by steinburger1109

Welllll, that kind of app production is promising and shows that devs have taken a liking to the system, but not necessarily that the consumers are. I think MS probably did a better job pitching the WP7 platform to app devs than the consumer market. :/

They are trying tho; Ive seen alot of WP7 commercials on tv =) never seen a commercial on a zHD ahha

[SockHaser]

Okay, just my 2 cents here. The think with MS is that they've never really had to advertise their product before. Two of their major money makers, Windows and Office simply didn't need advertisement. Everyone knew what they were.

I do think they are getting better however. When Vista flopped, they aggressively advertised Win 7 which did well. Then there was Kinect which was heavily advertised and they did excellent as well. WinPho7 was also market heavily and while it hadsn't taken off too much year, it has to be taken into account that people still on phone contracts will wait until they renew to get better deals. If there is a new Zune, maybe MS will actually do it right this time.

[ItsLasher]

I'll hold out excitement until Dave chimes in considering the article in the OP is vague at best.

Just because Joe is in the hardware department doesn't mean he is working on something new and the quote from Dave is the article was copy\pasted from THIS thread in part.

[rubenbest]

okay this is what i have to say about this.... when all these rumors came out that the zune hardware is dead so many people complained about it. it even was a hot topic on tiwtter. im sure microsoft saw that and said its probably worth an investment to make a new device.so many people are zune fans. also all of us have complained about what the zune should have on it for 18 months now. i wanna know how in the world some people think that the next zune device can be a failure. if its anything like wp7 which it probably will be it will be an ipod competitor. therefore microsoft should not scrap the zune hardware or software because i believe that the whole "zune ecosystem" is finally coming all together

[eddie.exe]

Originally Posted by SockHaser

Okay, just my 2 cents here. The think with MS is that they've never really had to advertise their product before. Two of their major money makers, Windows and Office simply didn't need advertisement. Everyone knew what they were.

That's no excuse. They did A LOT of advertising for the Xbox

[daglesj]

Originally Posted by Night Surfer

LOL @ saying " I am NOT a Hater" after saying "The Zune brand may as well be called 'Herpes' it reeks of FAIL."

I don't ever see any ads for Archos, Sony, Sansa, or Cowon players. None. Zip, zilch. Are they epic fail too? Why not? The only difference is your expectations because it happens to be Microsoft.

And compared to Apple, Archos/Cowon's etc sales are tiny but they still bring out half a dozen new products a year at least. They are smaller firms good at what they do. No harm in that. I dont expect Archos/Cowon to become big household brands, they never will be.

MS is.

I love MS products. I have 6 Windows 7 PCs in my apartment alone. I have many items of MS hardware (keyboards/mice) and several copies of MS Office. Even a Xbox that I play many hours of Defence Grid on.

MS are a great company. That doesnt stop one division of their empire having major suckage when it comes to organising themselves.

MS are great. Zune as a brand isnt. Zune as a brand should be dropped and re-launched as a purely music and video service like Spotify etc.

And whats wrong with criticising Zune etc.? No one here can say witrh a straight face they have done a superb job. Not even a average job of supporting the Zune as a brand.

If you want a forum of ass-kissing sycophants then go join an Apple forum.

If over the next few months they get their act together and start doing something then I'll be the first to praise. I'm not proud.

[Night Surfer]

The constant broken record samo samo over and over and over ad nauseum just gets old that's all. I think if the Zune was made by Sony or Archos there wouldn't be all this trolling going on.
When I first got my Zune 64HD Original and posted a pic of it the first response was something like "enjoy your "dead" Zune".
Pretty sure if I trolled the Cowon J3 forum and jumped into every thread spewing how overpriced it is and how the audiobook and podcast support sucks I would probably get banned. Why is it ok here?

[daglesj]

You just arent getting it old chap.

Cos we are not criticising the Zune hardware.

I cant fault the hardware. The software isnt bad either. We all respect Zune as a concept.

We just dont like the fact that the folks running it dont appear to respect it. It's really dissapointing and if we moan about it then maybe in their cold stoney hearts they might, just might have the guts to be straight with us about what the future holds.

If MS cant give a little respect to the few folks that have bothered to 'think different' and support their little media project then thats a pretty sad.

There is nothing wrong in criticising that.

Now if all I did was say "Zune Sucks!" or "Whats a Zune?" then you'd have a point.

[Darkhyperchaos]

"If they get rid of this terrible habit of theirs of providing and incredibly locked-down firmware, and forcing you to use specific software, then I may consider one, if they continue to provide this locked-down BS, then I will never own another Zune of any kind."

I totally agree with this. If new hardware comes out, from the software side of things, it needs to have both more open firmware and support for drag and drop (and thus support for players like Mediamonkey). MS already has a fairly strong base to build on with the current Zune HD, but it still will need a lot of additions in order to be competitive to the iPod Touch 4G (and soon 5G).

I'm not however convinced this means there's going to be new hardware. Meaning I wouldn't hold my breath.

[glove4]

All this discussion back and forth about Zune and WP7, and a possible new hardware .... am I missing something? There is no evidence of anything here....

[Vyp3R]

Originally Posted by Mr Manager

the brand has taken so many knocks at this point (some of them outside of Microsoft's control, though they're clearly doing themselves no favors)

I'm sorry, but the same was said of Vista, but Microsoft just trotted out the next version of Windows 7 and had a hit. I believe MS is just doing the same thing. Ignore all the hype and nay sayers on the Internet, produce another version that is better than the original and let the PR department create interest in the new product. (Granted the PR department missed the ball on the 1st Zune HD, but they - hopefully - learnt their lesson first time and will not fail this time round.)

Having watched MS right from the DOS days, I believe there IS new hardware coming for the Zune. As I know MS have a never say die attitude when they know there is a market share to grab. Granted the PMP market share is not huge, like the mobile phone area, but they know it is a shoe-horn in (as Apple has shown) for the moble arena.

Hardware is coming, because MS want to own both the PMP and mobile arenas, not just one and not the other. This I believe.