I guess am in the minority here of people who have actually used a Zune (HD, completely by accident, woke up on the floor of a Zune product manager's sweet apt in downtown Seattle while visiting a friend, long story.) I've got to say, I was impressed. Screen looked amazing, device is smaller and more responsive than an iPhone. The browser was sort of lame but you could just put Opera on it, no?
Anyways, it's true that Zune is getting trounced, but if Apple continues to piss people off and there are alternatives that are actually a pleasure to use, that may change.
The Zune is a great device. The biggest problem is that the Zune desktop software is pretty much nothing more than a skin over WMP, and can't even begin to compete with iTunes for library management.
I say this as somebody that's owned both iPods and Zunes. The actual hardware experience was better with the Zune, in my book, but the iPod blows it away on the software side.
He also thought SCO would win, with such prophetic headlines as "What SCO Wants, SCO Gets."
I'm pretty confident in the future of Android, but a positive prediction from Lyons is one of the few things that could cause me to reconsider my opinion!
Interesting to bring the Zune into the discussion. In the past it was always Apple vs. Microsoft. Recently it's been Apple vs. Microsoft vs. Google. In the mobile space though it's very clearly becoming Apple vs. Google even though Microsoft has rather credible products in the space.
I suspect too many years of abysmal products in the space just burned too many people to make Microsoft credible for at least 5 years.
I think Xbox 360 is doing pretty well in the minds of consumers. Its future and Google TV seem like they're going to be in direct competition, so I think it's a real 3-way battle.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0128/053.html