Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Stung by recent criticism of the marketing and functionality of its Zune portable media player, Microsoft this week revealed its plans for the device and, in a rare disclosure, its expectations for sales during Zune's first holiday season. According to a Microsoft representative who briefed me on these plans yesterday, the company expects to ship over 1 million Zune players by the end of their fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2007. That's enough to give Zune 10 to 20 percent of the market currently enjoyed by the Apple iPod device the Zune most closely competes with.

Assuming that happens, Zune isn't a total wash, as the number one non-iPod product in the over-$200 MP3 player market during last year's holiday season only sold a tiny fraction of that amount. It's also worth nothing that Zune went from the first whiteboard scribbles to finished product in about 10 months, a monumental feat for a company that isn't particularly well know for moving quickly.