[Russ Smith]

Every so often I have to explain Apple and Microsoft to people. The best explanation I've come up with is that Apple is a hardware company that writes software (some of it pretty good) to sell their hardware. Microsoft is a software company that occasionally builds hardware to sell their software. The Zune never really fit into that equation, but now, with the player being ported, it does.

I'm glad to see this as I"m one of those folks who've tried quite a few mobile media players because the built-in one just wasn't enough.

An aside about "classic" (non-phone) Pocket PCs (see CAB124 and Jason's recent comments): I've been a proponent of non-converged solutions for some time. At some points, my conviction wavers, but I remain a two-device guy. The reasons are simple: I can upgrade my WM side of things without having to buy a new phone. Likewise the phone side. My PDA screen is a 4 inch VGA resolution monster and my phone screen is a tiny 2 inches. I don't have to worry about my PDA use draining my cell-phone battery. I've even got 48MB of storage on my PDA (!).

In addition, because it's not a phone, I can actually use my PDA when I'm working (where they object to the possibility that you might be using your phone to check e-mail or browse when you should be attentive to guests.)

There are drawbacks: I have to make sure my phone supports high-speed phone-as-a-modem operation. They're linked via Bluetooth so that throttles the actual speed down a bit. Getting my PPC connected takes a few seconds longer. I can't use the RedFly, because my PDA is obviously not one of the supported phones.

So, while I agree with Jason that the non-converged PPCs hit their peak a few years ago, but, until I can find a way to get most of the plusses above on a phone, I'll stick with two devices.