Thank the heavens and shout out to the lord, the Zune HD software is finally blessing Windows Mobile with its heavenly grace.
What is Zune HD? Zune HD is a couple things. Number one, Zune HD is a music player with a nice music service. By the way, the same software will be available on Windows Phones and Windows PCs. You have that today on the PC, you’ll see that in our phone environment as well. – Steve Ballmer (Cnet)
So what does this mean for you and I? This means that we will finally have a Windows Mobile product that doesn’t suck. We will finally have a real competing product from Microsoft that could potentially rival the iPhone. This potentially means I will no longer be ashamed to sport my Microsoft pride in the mobile arena, thank you lord.
But in all seriousness, this is the right move for Microsoft to make. It is clear that the Zune interface (and not to mention hardware) is superior to that of current Windows Mobile phones. It also creates less developer break up or in another words, developers can focus on the Zune platform rather than both the Zune and Windows mobile platform. This would make the Zune very similar to the relationship of the iPod Touch/iPhone. With all this said, there is one one thing that worries me about Steve’s statement if you read between the lines:
Number one, Zune HD is a music player with a nice music service. By the way, the same software will be available on Windows Phones and Windows PCs.
This could almost be read as Microsoft simply making a music application for Windows Mobile based off of the Zune software (essentially replacing Windows Media Center). While I highly doubt this, you can be sure of the fact I will be retracting all my praise above if this happens. Not only is this stupid because of the likely confusion it will cause, if Steve truly thinks that the Zune HD software is only suitable as a music player he sorely underestimates his own product. Let us hold out for the best though, shall we?
Viva la Zune!
