[stainlessbanner]

M$ is good at marketing, perhaps it can offer a challenge to iPod Nation.

[stainlessbanner]

podder-ping

[x5452]

Sure it'll make a version which forces users to convert to a proprietary codec that they insist is open, and which will send data on all their listening habits to Redmond, further it will support a single button for simplicity; depending how fast or slow or how many times you press the single button it will do different things but none of them will be visually verified, and you'll have to open the documentation on the cd rom to know how many times/speed for which functions. The product will be announced shortly to great fanfare and ship 2.5 years from now, a year and a half latter than announced, though you'll be able to pre-order immeadiatly.

[Cincinatus]

Gates: We will challenge iPod

In the immortal words of Tuco (from The Good, The Bad, and tThe Ugly):

"If you're going to shoot somebody, Shoot! Don't talk!"

[ShadowAce]

[finnman69]

Ipod and Apple will be subject to one of the biggest class action suits in history as tens of thousands suffer permanent hearing loss.

Microsoft should market their version as a safe Ipod.

[xsrdx]

"Between us and our partners, you can expect some pretty hot products coming out over the next few years."

*Yawn*.

I don't see Microsoft building a better mousetrap here. They don't specialize in either sound quality, or simplistic user GI's, issues that make the iPod enormously successful. And iTunes has a giant head start.

Good luck, Bill.

[Sender]

Announcing the new Wpod!

-plays only DRM encrypted WMA files
-requires you to re-license your tracks daily
-has only 3 simple controls; CTRL ALT DEL -featuring new random "blue screen" lcd display -your 25-digit product key; don't leave home without it

[1Old Pro]

Microsoft needs to wake up and compete....two words: I-Pod & Blackberry.

[rhombus]

I've been using my PDA for a couple of years now with mp3s and video. It also has MS Word, Excel, Outlook, Internet Explorer and I use it to keep track of my checkbook. It seems like Microsoft has been competing.

[dfwgator]

Microsoft is good at being the second mouse, as opposed to being the early worm.

[theFIRMbss]

>Gates: We will challenge iPod

The beta version
of the Microsoft M-Pod
is a little big,

but Gates promises
to get the form factor down
by 50% . . .

[rzeznikj at stout]

Of course, if anyone's got $100 and an Altoids tin, people have built their own iPod-compatible mp3 players...

[pageonetoo]

M$ is good at marketing...

NOW ALL THEY NEED IS A PRODUCT!

iPod video patent just filed... touchscreen... larger version screen, with ability to buy all types of imports from iTunes.

I sold my AAPL holdings a couple weeks ago, and made a killing. I bught some back this week! I expect to make another...

[lawgirl]

Better make it cheap and better make it cute.

[Wolfie]

Oh for the days when the world wasn't watching, and you could just rip off the product and call it your own, eh Bill?

[TChris]

Cynical predictions about Microsoft's digital music player:

(Feel free to add your own)

• It will be more complicated to use than the iPod, but the word "intuitive" will repeatedly come out of every Microsoft employee's mouth when describing the product.
• It will have "digital rights management" "features" to make sure you only play "legal" music downloaded from Microsoft-approved sites, using Microsoft-approved software (read: Windows Media Player on Windows XP)
• The first demonstration of the unit before a live audience will be by Bill Gates and it will crash.
• The player will not play MP3 files initially. Gates will publicly declare that MP3 isn't important and that the WMA format is far more popular and gives users all the features they really want anyway. When sales clunk, Microsoft will quickly become the self-proclaimed MP3 masters of the universe and make every product they sell play MP3 files, including their keyboards and mice.
• It will never, ever play OGG Vorbis files. ...until someone hacks it to run on Linux.
• You will get absolutely sick of hearing how "innovative" it is. Even though Microsoft is sure to be just about the last one to the party. Again.

[HamiltonJay]

Won't be able to do it with a model that is basically build a device that runs a stripped down CE with Media Player... Which I am sure is what MS wants.

[antiRepublicrat]

"Between us and our partners, you can expect some pretty hot products coming out over the next few years."

Microsoft's problem is that it doesn't realize that we can expect some "pretty hot products" from Apple too. Microsoft: always shooting at where Apple is standing now, not where Apple will be when they shoot.

Methinks we need to send Bill duck hunting so he can learn about leading the target.

[SengirV]

I helped my father-in-law get his new mp3 player working with his wintel machine this weekend. The user interface with Windows Media *(whatever the last word is) used to burn CDs, create playlists, sync the MP3 players was soo cumbersome and nonintuitive that it literally made me angry. The in-laws stoped by on Sunday and I showed him iTunes on my Mac and how amazingly simply things were.

This might the final nail in the coffin of his wintel experience. I kid you not, he spent two days straight trying to get music onto his MP3 player.

[Revolting cat!]