Holiday Gloom?
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0810/gallery.holiday_gadgets.fortune/2.html' target='_blank'>http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008....fortune/2.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><i>"Microsoft's latest answer to the iPod, with 120 gigabytes of storage and a 3.2-inch high-resolution color screen, is a vast improvement over the original Zune, which debuted in 2006. But the new Zune faces the same problem as the iPod: Smartphones and other Web-enabled devices chock full of features (think iPhone) threaten to render these one-trick players obsolete."</i></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/zt/auto/1226085184.usr307.jpg"></p><p>The holiday season is getting close and that means big sales for a lot of gadgets. <a mce_href="http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0810/gallery.holiday_gadgets.fortune/2.html" href="http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0810/gallery.holiday_gadgets.fortune/2.html"> Fortune has a list</a> of gadgets, though, that it thinks will be flops. Fortune's biggest issue is that the prevalence of smartphones make the mp3 player start to look a bit long in the tooth. I'm not sure I agree with that assertion. Camera enabled phones have really done nothing to the digital camera business. Most people realize that a stand alone device is better in a lot of cases.<br><br>I think that, for now at least, the standalone MP3 player is still superior to almost any phone based option. The only one that really is a usable solution is the iPhone. And really, with phones tied to carriers, who wants to use that as their primary entertainment device. I really don't know that many people who have eschewed their iPod for an iPhone. Even people who have an iPhone mostly seem to have an iPod as well.<br><br>So with all that said, I think the impact on the Zune will be minimal. There is a large market for MP3 players that I really just don't see going away any time soon.</p>
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