Zune: welcome to the anti-social (part two)

No Surprise: Anyone paying attention to DRM issues saw it coming - because Microsoft has done this to it's customers before.

A big selling feature of the original iPaq and it's generation of Pocket PCs from other companies was Microsoft Reader 1.0, for eBooks. Microsoft hailed the Barnes & Noble ebook store, to arrive a few months after the Pocket PCs were released.

The ebook store finally openned, everyone bought books.... and found that they didn't work. It seems that there was a higher level of DRM that Pocket PCs didn't support - the ability to tie a book to a specific device - that Microsoft and Barnes & Noble neglected to tell the customers about.

"Don't worry", said Microsoft, "it's optional. Few books will use this higher level of DRM." Of course, approximately ALL of them did.

To "fix" this, they released some DRM-less books: Stuff already available for free on Project Gutenburg, and some old Star Trek drek.

Microsoft knows from experience that when they give the publisher the option of stricter DRM - even when it cripples the features that Microsoft is hyping - the stricter DRM will become the standard.

So it is with the Zune. That their biggest and most hyped selling feature would be crippled right from the start, is something Microsoft has no right to claim surprise over.; Posted by: RogerStrong Posted on: 01/20/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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A unique selling point Steve O'Hear | 01/20/07

Are you really shocked though Edward Meyers | 01/20/07

Shocked and not shocked tic swayback | 01/20/07

Even worse for the consumer Edward Meyers | 01/21/07

No Surprise RogerStrong | 01/20/07

It's Optional tic swayback | 01/20/07

Greed on all fronts dave95. | 01/20/07

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