American Technology Research Analyst Not Impressed by Zune

[Jason Dunn]

<span style="font-style: italic;">&quot;An analyst has said he's &quot;frankly underwhelmed&quot; by Microsoft's highly-hyped Zune media player, and considers the Apple iPod the &quot;de facto standard&quot; in the portable media market. American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu maintained a &quot;buy&quot; rating on shares of Apple Computer, which he considers to have the competitive advantage in the media player market. The Microsoft Zune is expected to launch later this year. &quot;Microsoft had hinted of an all-new design from the ground up, but from our analysis, it appears that the Zune is essentially a repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat that has seen limited success,&quot; said Wu in a report.&quot;</span><br /><br />This is definitely not the kind of press Microsoft wants to see before the product is even released. Frankly, why do they even bother showing the product to a guy like this? Someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea evidently, because if the analyst was impressed, he'd coming away touting Microsoft's &quot;future success&quot;, would recommend Microsoft stock as a &quot;buy&quot;, and the stock price would likely see a bump. Instead, we have the opposite effect. I'm still waiting to see more factual information about the Zune myself, but this article certainly doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Then again, this guy might know as much about digital media players as I do about the stock market (as in, not much at all).

[mcsouth]

"...which he considers to have the competitive advantage in the media player market......"

Which he considers to have the competitive advantage in the market? Wow, this guy is good! Based on that stunning conclusion, I'm sure the rest of his information is great, and I should follow like a little lamb......

Of course, I suppose that I do not fall into the "average consumer" role, since I read sites like this regularly, but the average buying public probably assumes this guy may actually know what he's talking about.

Based on the actual Forbes article, it's hard to know if this guy is actually making his statements based on actual facts, or if he has the same information which the rest of us have - which is minimal at best. The article never mentions if this guy actually had access to an actual player, or even to detailed specifications and information of MS's plans. It just says "based on our analysis", which could mean he actually read about it in the New York Times.

Sounds to me like just another analyst trying to justify his existence and make himself heard...

[Darius Wey]

Based on the actual Forbes article, it's hard to know if this guy is actually making his statements based on actual facts, or if he has the same information which the rest of us have - which is minimal at best. The article never mentions if this guy actually had access to an actual player, or even to detailed specifications and information of MS's plans. It just says "based on our analysis", which could mean he actually read about it in the New York Times.

Sadly, that is the case 99% of the time. I've learned to take what I read with a grain of salt.

[Phillip Dyson]

Microsoft had hinted of an all-new design from the ground up, but from our analysis, it appears that the Zune is essentially a repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat that has seen limited success

I have to admit, when I saw some of the first images, I was a bit anti-climactic. I saw the white version with black buttons.

I'm still excited to see the software platform and features though.

[randalllewis]

Several years ago I came to the conclusion that "financial analyst" must be the worlds most useless job. These guys pontificate and pronounce and the main stream media passes along their "insights." It's sad that so much of our modern financial world is guided by opinions that are valuable only because of the place of employment of the opinionator. As for me, let's see the Zune in person and the marketing effort and see what the "real people" have to say.