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I have a feeling that they may pack to many features into Zune to start off with and that will only cause issues. They only thing they seem to be missing is Mac support. ;)
Sounds kind of like the Sony Mylo sans keyboard.
Aghh The power of teh rumor.
Yeah, this definitely sounds like the Mylo. I have to disagree with Thomas though. The one thing many Mac fans are forgetting about is the different approach that Microsoft is taking with the Zune. Many of the complaints people have with Windows stem from Microsoft’s inability to control the hardware side of the equation. The Windows O/S literally runs on thousands of different hardware configurations. The Zune, however, will be like the iPod in a vertical market strategy with the Zune Marketplace. Microsoft will know and control the hardware as well as the software side like the XBox 360. Sure there can be glitches and its bound to happen (iTunes 7 anyone?) but I suspect those will be limited. The real challenge that Microsoft will face with adding too many features is usability. Office 2007 is addressing this very dilemna with redesign the user interface to reorganize the wealth of features and only installing features that a particular user needs. Many beta testers have been giving big props to Microsoft for this new approach. I guess we’ll have to see if Microsoft has adopted that mentality throughout their product channels.
What about all the magnetic stuff? That to me is cool. Will the “phone” be held on via magnets? That makes sense, and is easy, and doesn’t look shitty.
This is what will kill the Zune: Feature overload. Seems like the Zune won’t be a music player; it’ll be a music player/phone/movie viewer/pda/game console/whatever. At first, this seems to make it more attractive. In reality, people usually aren’t looking for an all-in-one device. They’re looking for a phone. Or for a music player. Or for a portable video player. And they’ll buy the one that suits their needs best, not the one that suits their needs and also every other need, but probably not in the best way possible.
Busta already runs Voip in Windows Live with an Active X 140kb plug in, and also plug ins for Google, Netvibes, and a variety of other platforms and devices. If Zune is running Windows Mobile then our technology works today as a gadget, widget or a flake, call it what you like, and your personal data including voice and video mail, just follows you…
Yep….you only have to look at what Nintendo are doing with the DS in Japan…Here they are adding a plug in voice headset…no reason why Zune cant be anything different….you have the wifi why not…?
The idea that Zune might have VoIP capabilities is very exciting.
The challenge will be creating a good user experience.
Probably the best relevant user experience is the one people have when they use Live Messenger. Instant Messaging is more and more looking like the phone of the future, even if for now a key feature of successful services like Skype is that it easily handles plain old phone numbers. (I think it’s safe to say that this is more important to Skype’s success for now than the fact that it knows about much-vaunted IM features like “presence.”)
The problem will be logging in to a messenger account using a device that doesn’t have a keyboard.
Clearly, the old .net vision of ubiquitous access to an IM account, anywhere, anytime, through any device including cell phones, iPaqs, etc. hasn’t panned out, probably for good reason. One reason might be the lack of convenient VoIP access; then there’s the clear insuitability of most mobile devices (except the RIM Blackberry, perhaps) for IM interaction.
One way the Zune could overcome this would be to take a page out of the iTunes/iPod book and let complex interactions like configuration, organization and synchronization hapen on the PC, where the user interface is more convenient, rather than on the device. (This was one of the master strokes that made the iPod/iTunes partnership so compelling – simplify the device!) This could be handled either in a dedicated fat client that consumes Web services, like an iTunes designed to work with Zune Marketplace, or through a combination of OS level services (e.g. Windows Live / Passport configuration for your PC user account) and modification to existing client programs, e.g. Live Messenger for messaging, etc, to recognize and configure the Zune. The key would be to allow a person to simply tie their Zune to their passport identity through synching with the PC. Then, they could indicate that they would like to recieve messages and phone calls on their Zune and the network would take care of the rest. (The potential beauty of WiFi access here is that, after initial configuration, a lot of synching could be handled over the network rather than through docking, albeit far more slowly that with 1394 and USB 2. This is the way the BlackBerry works. Can you say NTP lawsuit? Anyone?)
The bigger hurdle, though, will be WiFi network access for the Zune. Granted, this will not be a problem for wide-open WiFi networks, but these are far from ubiquitous. If the Zune is widely adopted (a big if, given the market dynamics surrounding the music player space and, notwithstanding WiFi access and predictable backlash against Apple’s dominance, the lack of any real differentiation and “coolness” of the Zune, MS and Toshiba), then there may be an opportunity for WiFi network operators to work with MS in the network access layer to allow Zunes to roam easily using passport credentials. In layperson’s terms, this translates into something like what they experience using their cell phones now: the phone simply discovers networks that are available and joins one where it has roaming priviledges.
Sounds good in theory. In practice, this would take a while to evolve. The obvious steps would be to propose some way to make Zune and Passport work with the mechanisms that major WiFi operators use to authenticate users. Then, leverage the already existing roaming agreements that these major operators may have in place to allow their users to access other networks. The operators handle billing and settlement – two tricky things you don’t neccessarily want to reinvent. (If you do, check out OSP – the Open Settlement Protocol. Though this is designed for inter-VoIP gateway settlement, it’s the pattern that’s interesting.)
Depending on how this plays out, there could be reciprocal marketing and promotion between the WiFi operators and MS. If MS needs help, they may go to the network operators and ask them to get on board and promote the Zune. By the same token, but on the other side of the coin, Starbucks may choose to promote the fact that you can use your Zune to take calls there unimpeded as a way of driving traffic to their locations – this is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. (Starbucks already lets people log in to their Starbucks account using Passport. This is actually pretty cool.)
The question comes up, though – why isn’t passport already used for WiFi network authentication for other devices, for example laptops?
One answer is that, for now anyway, there’s no obvious tie-in between network authentication and passport. People do a lot of things when they’re connected to public-access WiFi. I suspect that statistically very few of these activities depend on a passport ID, even if a lot of people have HoTMaiL accounts. And then there are the obvious reasons why Passport didn’t become as ubiquitous as Microsoft hoped it might back in the .net days. For one thing, I suspect people didn’t want to give that much control to Microsoft (witness the Liberty Alliance, an initiative to create an anybody-but-Microsoft federated identity mechanism).
But wouldn’t this change if people had “phones” that used Windows Live Messenger?
Well, speaking as an employee of a telephone company (but not, I should stress, on behalf of my employer) I think one reason it wouldn’t is that the telecom carriers are not too keen to see their revenues from voice telephony disappear too quickly, to put it lightly. In fact, wireless voice is the growth engine for most phone companies right now.
Sound like a non-sequitur? I think the telecom carriers have enough of an interest in the large WiFi networks, at least as a defensive move, that they could make a difference to how widely this kind of thing became adopted. And they would look long and hard at how quickly they would like to contribute to the demise of their existing voice service.
I haven’t done the analysis, but I bet a monthly WiFi bill would be much lower than a similar PCS bill.
Now, a bunch of things could change this. One would be if MS and the telecom carriers came up with a hydra-like Skype killer that allowed people to sign up with their existing carrier for Windows Live Out (a la skype out) and Windows Live In (a la Vonage phone number) service, billed to their existing phone or cell phone account. (Probably cell phone, since the back office support systems tend to be newer, are often already tied to WiFi services, and the fit makes sense, not to mention the expectation for cost and quality of service.) This way, you could use your Zune when you’re in the city or near a WiFi network, and your cell phone everywhere else. It’s the old wire line to wireless convergence concept, but with separate devices.
In this way, they’d be trading their existing dominance in the publicly-switched telephone network (PSTN) for the future dominance of the kind of ubiquitous device that doesn’t need the PSTN (IM to IM VoIP) in return for a present revenue stream for VoIP to PSTN Gateway service and potentially a longer-term revenue stream from WiFi. This might happen.
However, some upstart WiFi operator not tied to an incumbent phone carrier (e.g. a CLEC or WiFi pure-play) could force the issue, though perhaps at the expense of achieving a critical mass.
But this is a mess. Let’s face the facts: Skype phones are probably more suited to problem and are probably simpler and cheaper.
Not to mention phones that roam on WiFi and traditional cell networks, depending on what’s available.
Which is reminiscent of the core critique of the Zune – it’s not a simple device designed to do one thing exceptionally well.
All of this also brings to mind Microsoft’s claim that the Zune is part of a very long term strategy, and that it’s not meant to be an iPod killer at all.
Now, what if, instead of connecting to the Internet, Zunes instead formed a mesh network with each other. In this way, they would co-operatively pass messages around, kind of like kids passing messages in class. In fact, if this is true, this is probably where the Zune makes the most sense – in schools and other places where lots of kids get together.
This is where we blast off into science fiction.
MS has done some research, here. I wonder how relevant this whole mesh thing is to the fact that MS got in to, and then quickly out of, the WiFi hardware space a while back. You see, apparently, mesh WiFi networks, while they have great promise, don’t work in practice. Or, at least, making them work is complex, they’re not reliable and they’re not very fast. Now, I’m not an expert. The idea seems pretty good to me. In fact, it sounds a lot like the same thing as the original Internet a co-operative venture to subvert the long-distance monopoly of the telephone companies. Except that rather than connecting together a bunch of private networks using connections leased from the telcos, mesh connects together a bunch of devices using WiFi. (Notice the absence of the telcos.)
What if each device “cached” it’s unique Windows Live Messenger ID. And what if MS re-engineered it’s messenger to work in a peer-to-peer mode. Then, even if it was unable to connect to the global Internet, the Zune would still be able to show the online status of buddies who are in wireless range. That doesn’t require mesh, actually. With mesh, however, the Zune would also be able to show the online status of buddies who are wireless range of all the people who are in wireless range. Get enough Zunes in a school, and pretty soon the whole thing is covered. Or in a stadium. Or in a theatre. Or on a train. Or a city block.
The problem, of course, is that this is unlicensed spectrum. In other words, this could lead to the tragedy of the commons, where a public resource (the frequency used by WiFi) becomes polluted and overcrowded. However, there’s a funny thing about the Zune: I doubt it will have a lot of battery life. (Look at the poor iPod, which actually has pretty remarkable battery life given it’s size and capabilities.) In order to conserve power, it will have to have a pretty short range WiFi connection. This is actually a good thing, provided there are enough Zunes around, and they’re evenly spaced out. It means that the capacity of the mesh network to handle more users theoretically goes up, since there’s less interference.
And, if one or more of the Zunes in a mesh happen to be in range of an open Wi-Fi hub – boom (as Steve Jobs would say) they’re all on line. Suddenly, everyone can see all their online contacts (and vice versa). People you’ve added as buddies since you last had Internet access get added to your main Messenger account.
You’ve got to think every high school has a couple of open Wi-Fi hubs.
Wow. Once a few kids in a classroom got this going, it would spread like wildfire.
It had better be easy to type on, then. Or it has to have VoIP. But kids aren’t allowed to talk on the cell phone in class, I don’t imagine.
And, apparently, mesh doesn’t work.
Hmm… Just did a Google on this and found this article:
http://witopia.blogspot.com/2006/10/zunes-wifi-mesh.html
Apparently, there is an emerging standard for multi-hop mesh. Interesting.
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