Zune's About to Land

Come Tuesday and Microsoft will launch one of its much anticipated product- Zune. It is in direct competition with Apple's ipod and is stepping into the market looming under the huge shadow cast on the market by its rival.

Although the Zune is stepping in the market which is dominated by its competitor, its USP will be its feature of a build-in Wi-Fi system with which it will be able to connect to any other Zune in range and will be able to exchange content- music and pictures. But there is a catch. Transferred songs can be played only three times in three days before they disappear, pictures however will remain permanently.

Toshiba worked with Microsoft to develop the player and will handle the manufacturing while the software also called Zune was created by Microsoft. Also, the Zune will play any kind of digital music file just like the ipod, but songs can be only bought on the Zune Marketplace will work only on the Zune, which will cost around 99 cents. Users can download songs or subscribe to a $14.99 monthly all-you-can-download service from the online store. Once purchased, users can keep the songs indefinitely.

The idea of the Zune was concieved around last november. It has a 30-GB space and is priced at $249.99, exactly the price of its competitor and comes in three colors black, white and brown.

The Zune Marketplace, Microsoft's new online music store, offers about 2 million songs, while Apple's iTunes has about 3.5 million songs. The Zune will go on sale at around 30,000 retail locations, far more than the iPod started out in.

Also, Zune Marketplace offers none of the TV shows, movies or music videos that iTunes does, and has no audiobooks which is a major setback for it compared to the ipod. The ipod also has many different models available depending on the memory size while the Zune is simply launching a single model in the beginning.