Little known fact, M$ got that application support because they were giving away their SDK kits for free. While IBM was charging for their OS/2 ones.

Gee who would you write software for?

You know... that's kind of sad. It isn't that great a player... :/

Someone commented on slashdot that the Happy Numbers (assuming the source is the same) are for the first FOUR days and include no online-retailers. Can you say "flame out"?

Let's measure again in 6 months.

What I'd really like to see are full statistics on percentage of sales versus returns and if the statistics this article gives represent pure sales or sales minus returns.

I've been reading through the Zune reviews on Amazon and quite a number of people who bought one returned it in exchange for a different player. Most of the time for an iPod.

Lots of people seem to be having problems getting the device to even be recognized on their computer. One reviewer even took it back to Best Buy where they bought it and the Geek Squad could only get it to work on two computers.

Microsoft really has lots of work ahead of them if they really expect to take the market away from Apple.

And, Mr. Dawkins, as annoying as you are I do respect your opinion even if it is a little misguided at times.

Only time will tell how this one turns out.

One more thing - for those of you who still remember, do you know the apple computer was more popular and established when the pc and windows came out? Go have a look at their market shares now and see what time can do.

At least I'm not a shill

HERE COME THE IPODERS....sigh!

How did the ipod do when it was forst released? It took the ipod more than a year after launch to gain the momentum it has. M$ is in this for the long haul and with the kind of $$$$ at thgeir disposal, i wouln't write them off yet.

I'd say probably at least 75% of the people who wanted a Zune now have one, and it's all down hill from here. Everybody who's willing to consider other players will probably buy one of the other players.

That last sentence is kinda contradictory. Y'know, the before the last one about Gizmondo :-P

Earning yourself a 13% stake in the music player biz against a well established rival with huge barriers to switching (how much music would you have to buy again?) ....

in TWO weeks?

I'd say that's pretty good myself.