He certainly brings up good points but he completely ignored the fact that the Zune was never aggressively marketed.
Is it fair to say that the Zune may have done far better if people even KNEW how it was better than an iPod? A lot of non-tech people probably hadn't even HEARD of the device!
Ultimately I think the Zune failed because few people knew it existed, and fewer still knew how it was better than an iPod. If everyone knew it (a) existed and (b) was better than an iPod then I don't think the pricing of it would have been a big deal.
And they released it in brown first. If there's one thing Microsoft should know by now, its that the tech-savvy folks will take every chance to ridicule any slight flaw in their products. They should have learned this after their driver disaster in Windows ME. The same driver/hardware compatibility issue shouldn't have happened in Vista, but it did. The same lack of benefit awareness shouldn't be happening with Windows 8, but it is.
Microsoft needs to realize that they're selling in a crowded space now. They're not the only players, so they can't rely on a lack of choice forcing people to understand their products. Before anyone is ever told that there's a new Microsoft product, Microsoft needs to get their marketing people to explain what the product is, how users will benefit from it, and why it's better than the competition (or their previous products.) And this needs to extend to their hardware/software partners. I had problems with Vista originally because Creative kept telling me that the XP drivers for my soundcard would work. They didn't.
Microsoft seemingly releases a product and hopes the market will get it. In the past, it was adapt or die because MS was the only real game in town. Today they need marketing first, then engineering. If enthusiasts decide they don't like the product, that's what they're going to tell non-enthusiasts. That's the problem Microsoft doesn't seem to care about.
Kudos to that. The funny thing is that in the past Microsoft wanted phones and tablets to look like desktops, and it didn't work. Now they want desktops to look like phones and tablets. I predict it won't work.
Windows hasn't changed it's layout from 1995 for a reason, people know it and they don't want it to change. Many people still hate the Ribbon on Office just because it's different from what they were used to. Now they built Metro, which is radically different, and expect people to love it because it has Windows on the name. They just don't get it, the 90's are over and you can't do whatever you want without alienating your customers.
As someone said, the Surface is entering a crowded market. The Surface is launching more than 2 years after the first iPad hit the shelves. In the years since, the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire have established themselves as compelling consumption devices at the $199 price point. It is not like Microsoft did not market the Zune at all. They did, but most of their marketing was vacuous or not correctly targeted. There is nothing to say that their marketing department has sharpened its pencils in the four years since 2008. Did anyone like the IE9 advertising campaign launched by Microsoft? In fact, can anyone recall a recent Microsoft advertisement (other than an ad for an XBox 360 game) that made them want to go out and buy the product? I cannot, so I do not have much hope for the Surface commercials.
All of this said, how many of you will buy the Surface over the iPad if both were available for the same price? The HN audience aside, how many non-techie folks do you think will buy the Surface over the iPad if there is no financial incentive?
Is it fair to say that the Zune may have done far better if people even KNEW how it was better than an iPod? A lot of non-tech people probably hadn't even HEARD of the device!
Ultimately I think the Zune failed because few people knew it existed, and fewer still knew how it was better than an iPod. If everyone knew it (a) existed and (b) was better than an iPod then I don't think the pricing of it would have been a big deal.