Poor Bill Gates. It’s looking like not even a confusing commercial starring Jerry Seinfeld is going to save North America’s fourth-favorite portable music device. According to an unnamed source speaking with Bloomberg, Microsoft will not be introducing any future versions of the Zune due to ‘tepid demand,’ or as I wish they had put it, ‘flaccid enthusiasm.’ Instead, the company will focus on integrating Zune software into compatible mobile phones, such as Windows Phone 7. That thing’s flying off the shelves, right?
Let us take a moment, allowing Mr. Gates the privacy to sob into his Smart Pillow as the lights dim, the wallpaper turns blue, and another Everly Brothers tune emanates from the fireplace, to look back on some moments in “TMT News History” that just wouldn’t have been possible without that rascally Zune:
— September, 2006: Gumshoe reports from deep within Microsoft HQ on a brand-new music/squirting device in the works, penning the longest news item ever published on this site (this may have had something to do with Microsoft flying Gumshoe to Seattle and putting him up in a hotel).
— May, 2007: Much time has passed. The Zune has been released, and the gloves are off. Joseph Coscarelli reports on Microsoft telling Apple they smell, and Apple telling Microsoft they’re probably smelling themselves.
— July, 2007: Joseph Coscarelli reports again on a HOT new Zune-sponsored concert series featuring performances from Common, David Banner, E-40, and Large Professor. These concerts serve as the main inspiration for Gucci Mane’s left eardrum tattoo of the Zune logo.
— April, 2008: Nobodaddy reports on Microsoft’s decision to release a limited-edition Zune sporting the Unknown Pleasures album artwork. Everyone starts to feel bad for Microsoft, but no one buys a Zune.
— September, 2008: Two years have passed since Microsoft bought Gumshoe a hotel room. Mango Starr reports on McDonald’s offering free wi-fi to Zune users. Two weeks later, Mango is arrested in a St. Louis McDonald’s for public nudity, tarnishing TMT’s reputation.
— May, 2009: Nobodaddy reports again on Microsoft’s decision to release a commercial starring a “Certified Financial Planner” who cycles through bar graphs and shouts at viewers that they’re somehow spending $30,000 on an iPod. Literally no one even reads Nobodaddy’s story.
— March, 2011: Hey guys. We’re back in the present. RIP Zune.
• Zune: http://www.zune.net
[Photo: ZDNet]