Zune + Xbox

As someone who loves conspiracy theories and evil genius and all that stuff, this is fascinating:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/20/the-clicker-zune-its-all-about-the-ecosystem/

Regarding Microsoft's failure in the music player market thus far: "Does that mean that Microsoft was wrong? Perhaps not. Perhaps they were just being a tad disingenuous in regard to their true plans. It's quite possible that we're just now seeing Microsoft's first real play in the digital audio player market. Perhaps, just perhaps, Microsoft has been stalling. And while claiming that Microsoft has just been stalling (as opposed to, say, clueless) might give them credit for an inordinate amount of self-awareness, we must closely examine this particular situation."

It's very interesting how J. Allard and the Xbox team have avoided being burdened by operating within a big, relatively slow-moving company like Microsoft by operating outside the normal rules of play. Supposedly that's what they're doing with Zune. Just throwing away Windows Media Player and everything and having total vertical integration, possibly including the Xbox.

It gets better. It was noted in an Engadget/Joystiq interview with Peter Moore on May 12, 2006 that J. Allard has been MIA since the Xbox 360 launch. Moore's excuse was that he had a BMX event or something, and that it was determined that Moore should be the singular face of the Xbox, and the Allard was super-busy running the platform. Turns out he's apparently been working on this project all along.

It, of course, remains to be seen whether Zune will be a total flop. Last time Microsoft launched a hype campaign (anyone remember Origami?) it turned out to be a disappointment, basically just a mini-Tablet PC with some extra interface stuff. But it'll certainly be interesting.