Zune - What can brown do for you? Apparently, not much.
When the brown Zune launched late last year, the awesome design team at Microsoft really squeezed one out. And when Steve Ballmer promoted the Zune by describing its ability to “squirt” content to other Zunes, he didn’t know how accurate he actually was. Indeed, it was a bad case of the squirts which produced the stinky, brown Zune from Microsoft. One year later, the brown Zune continues to circle the drain after posting dismal sales numbers from etailers like Woot. Please, Mr. Ballmer, push the flush handle. And don’t forget to wipe.
Updated!
Update - 10/22/2007
Okay, enough already. Thanks for all of your comments and email about our “Zune bashing” here on Touchtip, but it’s time to set the record straight. We are not bashing the Zune at all. In fact, we think the iPod touch could learn a few tricks from the Zune 2. It’s just that we are not big fans of the color brown for our electronic gadgets because in the end (and we mean that figuratively) color design is based on emotion and brown is…well, sort of Victorian. Like say, if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a Zune, you’d pretty much expect it to be brown, no? We’re not sure why brown is Victorian but it probably has something to do with the emotion that the Victorian era evokes. And from the sales reports of the brown Zune it seems most un-Victorian customers agree.
Add a comment (11 so far)
Who cares fanboy. What did the color Brown ever do to you?
this is just an example of how out of touch microsoft is with want consumers want. i read a great quote recently that said “microsoft builds products customers want, apple builds products customers desire”. so true.
That is a great quote, Beverly. And it amounts to a pretty big difference in product design philosophies between the two.
I mean really… brown?
It’s amazing how polarizing the brown Zune is. It’s also amazing how juvenile bloggers can be, eager to unleash a steady stream of poop jokes because it involves Microsoft. But guess what? Everyone is talking about the Zune, much more than Sandisk or any other player other than the iPod. So if Microsoft’s goal was to create a Zune colour that people would talk about, disagree about, etc…then they certainly succeeded didn’t they?
A friend of mine has the brown Zune, and he loves the colour. In fact I’ve seen quite a few people complain that there’s no brown in the v2 Zunes. Brown was a popular colour in clothing last year, and although I’m not fond of the colour myself, I think Microsoft’s design team did a much better job with Zune colours than Apple did with their incredibly tacky Nano colours. This year the “big” Zune colour is the army green…I suspect it’s not going to make the jokes as easy, so I imagine you won’t talk about it.
Jason Dunn
http://www.zunethoughts.com
Army Green !! ? OMG
gobsmacked am I ..
.. on second thoughts .. perhaps camouflage is a good idea.. I wouldnt want to be seen with one
I think MS should take some Zune inspiration from the Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans candy from Harry Potter. They could have Zune colors like Vomit, Earwax, and Dirt. Oh wait, they made Dirt but called it brown. They’d probably sell more with a name like Dirt. Army Green could be Booger. My nephew would love that.
The proof is in the, uh, p… udding.
The brown Zune is now down to $80.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/22/the-80-brown-zune/
Take that 0 out and I’ll go scoop one up myself.
Brown is just bad. Microsoft basically has a market of tasteless products stylewise because ummmm most people don’t have sharply atuned tastes in other words. I’m trying to think do people have brown colored cars? Oh and simebody up there was making fun the color, dude that person wouldnt know hip if it hin. Seriously you dont need to make colors that appeal to guys since almost get neutral colors. Boriiiiing
oh and please excuse my typing errors thanks to autocorrect
I just bought a BROWN Zune. The fact that it’s brown doesn’t bother me. It still does what the other colors do. The big difference is that it was CHEAPER than my son’s WHITE Zune. That’s what attracted me more than anything. I can live with BROWN.