Microsoft’s Zune HD wins fans

05 Aug

Posted by erikbowman as Uncategorized

Microsoft’s Zune HD, scheduled for release this fall, is getting some positive buzz today after bloggers for CNet got some hands-on time with the device. After about an hour with the Zune HD, CNet’s Donald Bell declares that it has tentatively reaffirmed his faith in the product.

"Mind you, it’s not going to crush the iPod Touch — a product that for all intents and purposes is more mobile computer than media player — but it’s safe to say that the Zune finally has the power to make good on the promise of delivering one of the richest music experiences on a portable device," Bell writes, referring to features including the OLED touch screen, high-def video, and the built-in browser.

Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft who also blogs for CNet, highlights elements including the user interface in this post.

"Here, Microsoft has done a solid job, taking the mixture of horizontal and vertical menus used on the current Zunes and adding particular tweaks for the touch screen," Rosoff writes. "You can scroll horizontally or vertically simply by swiping your finger along, and there are multiple "ways in" to and "ways out" of the various menus and screens, which encourages exploration."

The hands-on reviews follow leaked photos of a black Zune HD model earlier this week. Microsoft is now confirming the existence of that black model, and the image above is from a company representative.

See our previous coverage for more on the Zune HD.

READ MORE and COMMENT, more
and Yahoo can escape Microsoft deal if it doesn’t measure up to Google

The terms of Yahoo’s agreement with Microsoft would allow the Sunnyvale, Calif., company to terminate their partnership if it doesn’t perform well enough against Google on the key metrics of revenue per search and U.S. market share, according to a regulatory filing.

Yahoo described the termination provisions in a Form 8-K, filed yesterday afternoon with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but the catch is that the filing doesn’t say precisely how well the Microsoft-driven search partnership would need to perform against Google to justify a termination. The filing refers to measures specified in the deal between the companies, without giving the actual numbers.

Here’s the provision, part of a broader section on potential justifications for termination of the agreement.

Yahoo! may terminate the Search Agreement if the trailing 12-month average of the RPS in the United States (the “U.S. RPS”) of Yahoo! and Microsoft’s combined queries falls below a specified percentage of Google Inc.’s (“Google”) estimated RPS measured on a comparable basis or if the combined Yahoo! and Microsoft query market share in the United States falls below a specified percentage.

In addition, after five years, there appears to be a different threshold for termination. The filing says that "on the fifth anniversary of the Search Agreement, and any time thereafter, Yahoo! has the right to terminate the Search Agreement if the trailing 12-month average of Yahoo!’s U.S. RPS is less than a specified percentage of Google’s estimated RPS."

Yahoo and Microsoft currently have less than 30 percent of the U.S. search market combined, compared with 65 percent for Google, according to comScore. The Yahoo-Microsoft search partnership requires regulatory approval before it can be implemented.

A Yahoo representative declined to disclose the "specified percentages" in response to our inquiry, but we’re holding out hope that the numbers might surface at some point. As one TechFlash reader pointed out via email this morning, "It would say a lot about what Microsoft thinks Bing can achieve relative to Google. Is it 50%? Is it 90%? Those numbers would have very different implications."

Also see coverage by Rafat Ali of paidContent.org.

Previously: Search deal requires Microsoft to hire at least 400 Yahoo workers