randomly wondering: why did the ipod succeed and the zune fail so hard? was it just that the ipod was first, or did the zune have some critical flaws?
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@Felthry the iPod was a clear, streamlined design at a time when mp3 players were ugly, bulky or lacking storage. The Zune entered a market dominated by the iPod with nothing to set it apart, weird gimmicks and bad marketing
@noiob so mostly that the ipod was first and there was nothing to make people prefer the zune? makes sense.
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@Felthry @noiob Microsoft probably could have succeeded in this market even then (Windows wasn't the first or originally most popular computer OS, after all), but at the time they were making technically good products that completely failed to anticipate their target audience.
This was also the era of the Microsoft Kin and Windows Phone, which were both ahead of their time (vs netbooks and several core features in smartphones). But both went splat as well.
@Goldkin @Felthry yeah MS definitely has the money and the tech to enter a market late (see: Xbox)