Amidst all of the Microsoft-Yahoo hubbub, business carries on at the world’s biggest software company. Today, Microsoft is set to announce a series of updates to the Zune, its answer to Apple’s wildly popular iPod.
The biggest news for Zune fans – Microsoft claims 2m of them – is that they will now be able to buy some of their favourite television shows through Microsoft’s online Zune store.
The shows, priced at $1.99, come courtesy of new content deals with NBC and other popular studios. They will add 800 TV shows to the 3.5m songs, 4,800 music videos and 3,500 podcasts already available through Microsoft’s iTunes equivalent.
Microsoft had its work cut out when it launched the Zune in November of 2006 and is still playing catch-up to Apple, which launched TV shows on iTunes two years ago. But Jason Reindorp, Zune’s marketing director, says the Zune is beginning to carve out a niche for itself among consumers looking for an iPod alternative.
“We are rushing to get to parity with the iTunes offering,” Mr Reindorp says. “But at the same time sowing the seeds of our key differentiators.” For Microsoft, this means a focus on the social aspect of music. Tomorrow’s announcement will also include new social features designed to make it easier for users to share playlists.
Noticably absent from Microsoft’s announcement is any indication whether a content deal with film studios is in the works. Apple unveiled a push into film rentals in January after it admitted that its a-la-carte business model for film downloads had failed to perform as well as it had hoped.
Mr Reindorp says movie rentals are something that would be “very easy” for Microsoft to do eventually technologically but that the company was focused on download-to-own TV content for the time being.
Microsoft declined to specify the terms of its new content deals, but hinted that it was willing to accommodate studios in ways that Apple was not. “Increasingly we’re seeing that studios want flexibility, and iTunes has a one-size-fits all, give us your content and we’ll distribute it in this way [approach],” Mr Reindorp says. “I’m not sure that’s sustainable going forward.”
