It makes no difference.
The Zune simply won't be enough to challenge the iPod/iTunes paradigm. Apple's ecosystem is not only well-implemented and ridiculously popular with consumers, it's also branded effectively by a company whose goals and focus can be clearly defined in only a few words - or rather, some key buzzwords that have been attached to the Apple name for years now. It's easy to pinpoint Apple's priorities and what the company cares about. It's a simple mission statement.
MS just doesn't have the image or that "we did it right the first time" reputation. MS is a corporate provider trying to play to the consumer. Except people can see through that. Too obvious.
The Zune might be a terrifically engineered product, but no one believes that Microsoft is capable of that kind of innovation that speaks to the right brain, and Apple has leveraged that famously in its ads.
The $30,000 to fill up your iPod" campaign by MS was a failure out of the gate. Subscription services have never been popular, and never will be, much less MS' oddball way of approaching it. Other than Spotify, which you still can't get on mobile devices, they seem to have largely missed the point.
And when we get the next-gen iPhone shortly, most of this will have hardly mattered. The iPhone as an all-in-one device that is proving wildly capable, and is gradually pushing everything else into obsolescence. Zune HD = no apps, no games, no momentum, nothing that we haven't seen before . . . while all the developers are flocking to develop for Apple's devices. All the talent is headed for Apple country, and it's paying off for both developers and users. Big time.
Users, pundits, developers, have already placed the iPhone and iPod Touch squarely against the DS and PSP, two devices which are rapidly losing their mindshare to Apple. And frankly, the more we see the comparisons, the more those two devices look like one-trick relics. No mean feat. Quite an accomoplishment by Apple. Mindhsare is ALL. And Apple actually has the goods to get it.
As long as Apple remains in the picture, and as long as they stick to their priorities and carry forward their philosophy about how they envision everyday people interacting with technology, no one else really has a chance.
