Gates praises iPod, labels Zune a "modest" competitor

When we report on the sayings and sound bites of higher ups at technology companies, we tend to cover them from a negative angle because, as you well know, execs are pretty fond of belittling their opponent's products. The latest exception to this rule comes from none other than Bill Gates, who recently praised Apple's iPod, calling it "phenomenal, unbelievable, fantastic" in front of an audience at Stanford University, California. The timing of these words -- only a few days after the launch of Zune -- would be the most surprising aspect of his speech were it not for Gates' later musings on Microsoft's aim with the Zune. According to Gates, the plan with Zune is "more modest" than total domination of the portable media player market, with Gates elaborating that the company wants to "excite people about the concept" of sharing music and video wirelessly through Zune. Perhaps the company's "problems" in Europe and the lackluster reception towards the current iteration of Zune -- hence the focus on Zune's primary innovation, WiFi -- have calmed Gates, or maybe the iPod franchise has grown so huge that even its main competitors can't conceive of aiming for first place. Either way, we have a feeling that the words contained in emails exchanged between Zune HQ and Gates over the weekend won't be half as measured as those in this speech.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 19th 2006 4:31PM]

Unbangyourmom @ Nov 18th 2006 10:38PM

I've owned a bunch of mp3 players and just bought a Zune. They all are subpar compared to the ipod.
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I certainly won't argue with your opinion, except to say try the Cowon devices. Personally, I need Ogg Vorbis & FLAC support and Mass Storage (for data AND playable audio) as minimums. Cowon still doesn't have gapless playback, removable batteries on most of their models, or other little things I'd like, but I think they make very solid products. I'd certainly give them my money before most others.

IMO, to have to load software at all to get music on the device is totally undesirable. All of them (Zune, iPod, etc) are sup-par when we have plenty of devices acting just like data drives to get playable music on them. Native Mass Storage for music is the only thing I can accept.

Consider that even for ipod, you need to load software on the device. Want to share tracks on different operating systems? Load more software.

3 different files for 3 different OSs, for example, just to get music on or off the device. Ridiculous to be going through that just to get music from the device to PC (or vice versa). Sorry, but I can't accept those limitations just so Jobs can kiss up to the music industry.

I want to be able to go to virtually ANY PC and copy tracks off and onto it as I please. They don't own the content. I do.

I can use whatever freeware apps I want to rip/ tag the tunes. iTunes, Zune software and Sony's SonicStage (to list 3 big examples) offer me nothing but a memory hog in that department (and throw in a bunch of inconvenient restrictions, too).
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Jeff @ Nov 18th 2006 10:59PM

Re: tekdroid
What sort of DRM are you talking about on the iPod? I ripped my CDs, put the resulting MP3s on the iPod, and can copy them off if I want, all with no restrictions.
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The fact that your tunes are encrypted on your device is not exactly transparent, but that's one effect of the DRM. If I have to load freeware hacks to get songs off the device and onto a PC, that's a limitation of DRM. Sony do it. Microsoft do it with their Zune. It's an artificial restriction. I think it's absolutely ridiculous that the masses have accepted this as 'normal'. Computers have always been about showing files. Selecting them. Copying them. Pasting them. Dragging-n-dropping.

You're right that ripping an mp3 from CDs will give you no restrictions (aside from quality losses). Only FairPlay-infested iTunes tracks will limit the amount of times you can burn a playlist to CD, etc.

Nothing new here, though. As you know, people have been ripping tunes from CD with many freeware applications long before the (bloated) iTunes showed its face.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 21st 2006 9:52AM]

I am a current iPod user and fanboy. I am also a current Mac user and fanboy. I do not own a Zune. I have never even seen a Zune up close but I was curious enough about it to do some research. Part of this research was to watch Amazon's list of top sellers in electronics from 10:00 am this morning 'till now which is about 8:00 pm. From its number 6 place on launch day it had slipped to number 37 this morning and currently it has fallen to number 55. The Zune's closest neighbors in this list are the players that were already competing with the iPod. It just seems like the biggest selling point on this player is the wifi sharing but if you are going to have to search for somebody to share with what is the point? You probably won't like their music once you find them if they aren't in your immediate circle to begin with. Microsoft will make this better if they don't have to dump the whole program before they get a chance to and for the people that have already bought it, it seems like it will be a very nice player but may not deliver on the sharing experience for a long while.