Zune.net Going International Soon?

[Jason Dunn]

A keen-eyed Zune Thoughts reader noticed something when he visited Zune.net, the official Microsoft Zune site: rather than resolving to www.zune.net like it used to do, it now resolves to <a href="http://www.zune.net/en-US/">www.zune.net/en-US/</a>. The en-US is Microsoft's method of language coding indicating that it's the English USA site - and that can only mean one thing: they're inching closer to international releases of the product in localized languages. How soon are we talking here? It's hard to say, but having work with Microsoft over the years I will say that they're known more for last-minute execution rather than being months ahead of schedule - so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a summer release of the Zune in one or more markets.

[Covert]

Hmm, I'm relatively sure it's been doing that for quite some time...In fact, when I copied the zune.net URL from my browser to paste it into an article on my site back on November 6th, 2006 (http://cghm.org/wow/2006/11/06/xbox-360-movie-downloads/), it showed as "http://www.zune.net/en-US/" (and is still embedded in the article that way).

But I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft did go international pretty soon.

[Darius Wey]

Hmm, I'm relatively sure it's been doing that for quite some time...

I think you're spot on there. I distinctly remember zune.net resolving to zune.net/en-US since the Zune's release date.