My two year old son was signing the song that starts with Where or Where has my little dog gone. It was about the time I started to reflect on how Microsoft has missed the boat completely on the new Media Evolution. This coupled with how the Zune is crippled in it’s non progresiive status quo functionality.
My question to those at Microsoft is this who the hell is watching the store? Is everyone over their out to lunch and have the lost their minds.
The Zune along with Windows Media Player 11 could have been a killer application / killer player. But I have come to a conclusion the decision to delivery Zune the way it is and Windows Media Player the way it is had to be deliberate and is absolute ANTI NEW MEDIA!
Their are smart people over their at Microsoft, but it is very obvious that someone at the top has stifled innovation and is going to let Apple clean their clock on this on purpose. Stick a form in the products and lets get on with working around them.
Sorry Microsoft you chickened out, the road map to success was such a simple one, so simple that I hope Apple eats your lunch for being so ANTI NEW MEDIA.
Here is part of a road map which could have resulted in a home run!
- Integrate the down load of Podcasts into Windows Media Player Natively. Separating Mainstream Media content With Indie content
- Built a Podcatcher into Zune and allowed it to update when connected to the Net via Wi-Fi instead of crippling the Wi-Fi in the unit.
- Allowed People to record and publish a podcast via the Zune simple addition of Mic and some Software.
These three simple steps plus a handful of smaller ones would have made the release of Windows Media Player 11 and Zune a huge success.
But instead we are getting reports that Windows Media Player 11 mangles podcast ID3 Tags, and nearly makes it impossible for people to find content that is indexed by WMP. Smart really Smart!