In a recent interview (German web site) Steve Ballmer was quoted saying: “so far we lose money in the business because we must invest. Therefore we decided not to go into new markets yet. When are we going to be ready? I cannot say for now”.
No thats a kick in the guts! Im going to go out on a limb here and assume that is pretty much every where, including where I’am, Australia. And yeah I know if people want a Zune, it really is not that hard to get your hands on it, there are even stores already set up in Australia selling the Zune. However it would be nice to have the Zune officially out here and have a local Zune MarketPlac.
In an article by Reuters, they talked with the marketing director of Zune and he give us some hints of the possible timeline for the new releases. He said that Microsoft is happy with the sales in the US to this point. The Zune took a 10.2 marketshare in the month of December according to the NPD Group.
He indicated that the Zune’s European launch is possible for late 2007, in time for the holiday season. He said that Microsoft is currently doing research wuth focus groups to modify Zune for European customers. This change will probably be mostly on the software and marketing aspect though. However, he still said that Microsoft has not given a firm release date for Europe and that it may only show up on the market in 2008.
He also indicated that Microsoft is working on new Zune’s for the US. The new Zunes should arrive for the Christmas season in the US aswell. This will probably include the flash based Zune’s mentioned earlier and an update to the hard drive Zunes. The change isn’t unexpected seeing that iPods and other portable media players also go through yearly revisions.
It’s good to see that Microsoft is beginning to reserach using focus groups in Europe. But they still have to launch the player in Canada, Australia and many other areas of the world.
Acording to an interview on Czech Business Weekley web site with Jan Muehlfeit, Microsoft’s vice president for corporate and government engagement throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) he was asked “When will the Microsoft portable media player Zune be launched in Europe?” The answer to that is “It should be in Europe in the first half of 2007. Right now, it’s sold just in the U.S.”
So is this good news for our tea drinking friends? or another “miss quote” We will soon find out :)
