Whatever you do, don't get a Zune

[Undertoad]

The Zune will not share nicely with the "plays for sure" stuff. (Just like the next device will not share nicely with the Zune. Of course. Getting you to buy all your music twice, three times, four times is the game here.)

And now, this guy points out how the "Zune marketplace" forces you to buy "Microsoft points" to buy music, as opposed to the plain old US currency that the iTunes store uses.

(But it's convenient for you, because you can also use your Microsoft points on Xbox Live, in case you fell for the idea of paying to connect to other people on the internet to play games with them.)

[Elspode]

Something I noticed in the Sunday newspaper ad blitz that began this past weekend for Zune: Nowhere in *any* of the ads did it identify the Zune as being a Microsoft product.

What's *that* tell you about this guaranteed loser? Microsoft is so intent on protecting digital rights that they are goig to drive people away from their products, so they're just sort of soft peddling the fact that it is their device in the ads?

Vista is also going to see a major loss in market share for them, I believe. I don't think many people are eager to upgrade to an OS that is designed around preventing them from doing things that they were able to do before.