Jason Dunn
01-19-2007, 07:00 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/takahashi/2007/01/18/ces-interview-with-bill-gates-part-2-transcript/' target='_blank'>http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/takahashi/2007/01/18/ces-interview-with-bill-gates-part-2-transcript/</a><br /><br /></div><em>"Dean Takahashi: There wasn’t much mention of Zune today. We keep expecting the next Zune device like the 60-gigabyte version or something else.<br /><br />Bill Gates: Zune deserves an event of its own. We clearly don’t have any new model. We just introduced the product three months ago. It’s doing well. We knew what we wanted. Just like the first-generation Xbox, we wanted to get on the learning curve. We wanted to get credibility. We wanted to have a reputation of doing something innovative and something that we could upgrade over time because of the large screen and the WiFi. We feel great about Zune. Sometime this year, maybe twice, we’ll have more Zune events where we talk about concrete things. It wouldn’t have made any sense to a talk about it here for a lot of reasons."<br /></em><br />This <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/takahashi/2007/01/18/ces-interview-with-bill-gates-part-2-transcript/">CES interview with Bill Gates</a> covers a myriad of topics, and there are a few Q&A's about the Zune. Gates says Microsoft is still on target to sell 1 million unit by the end of Microsoft's 2005/2006 fiscal year, but they have to sell a lot of units. Does the Zune have the momentum to make it? Perhaps - I think they'll get a boost if they manage to unleash a cool WiFi feature or two!