Microsoft's $1 Billion Failure

Microsoft could have been Apple... Snazzy Labs talks about the Microsoft Zune and why an excellent product ultimately failed—and failed spectacularly. Flashback podcast episode about Zune - http://relay.fm/flashback/2 How to Waste $300 with Austin Evans (iPod nano) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oucEDfmNBo8 Flashback Episode 3: the GM EV1 Electric Car - http://relay.fm/flashback/3 Flashback Episode 2: the Microsoft Zune - http://relay.fm/flashback/2 Flashback Episode 1: the Apple Newton - http://relay.fm/flashback/1 Follow Snazzy Labs on Twitter - http://twitter.com/snazzyq Follow me on Instagram - http://instagram.com/snazzyq Microsoft in the mid-2000s just couldn't get things right. While Xbox 360 was doing well, Windows Vista was a spectacular disaster and the launch of the iPhone and Google Android ultimately pushed Microsoft and the Windows Phone operating system out of the market. But a few years before that there was Zune: a portable MP3 player brave enough to take on the iPod. Did it work? Clearly not... Why, however, was Microsoft's music player such a failure and why did it cost them over a billion dollars in losses?