The Motley Fool calls on Microsoft to kill the Zune:

I get why Microsoft wants to bury the iPod. The player’s success created a halo effect, winning over Mac converts. They’re using Mac’s operating system over Windows, surfing on Safari instead of Explorer, and not necessarily relying on Microsoft Office, even though it’s popular and available for the Mac.
[…]
Unfortunately, there comes a point when persistence becomes embarrassment. No one laughs at SanDisk or Creative for taking up slings and stones against the Apple Goliath, but Microsoft is too big to settle for being a niche player. The whole social sharing distinction of the Zune becomes a joke when there are too few Zune owners around to share tunes with.

A couple of things I didn’t know:

Critics can point out that Apple commanded a whopping 76% of the market two years ago. [As opposed to the company’s 70 % share today.] However, what about the brisk-selling Apple iPhones, which also double as iPods? Apple is looking to move five times as many of its pricey iPhones this year than all the Zunes Microsoft has sold to date. Even [RIM’s] new BlackBerry Bold smartphone syncs up to Apple’s iTunes, further entrenching Apple as the digital-delivery standard.

Isn’t that Blackberry news (emphasis added) odd? It would seem that if Apple licenses iTunes for every Tom, Dick and Harry of a cell phone, demand would go down to iPods. Apple doesn’t care about being “the digital-delivery standard” except to the extent it builds up iPod sales.

The Blackberry item is particularly strange in that the Apple iPhone is aimed squarely at the Blackberry market. Why is Steve Jobs allowing Blackberry users a iTunes workaround?

Also:

There’s little reason to get excited about the Zune, especially since the second million units have sold slower than the first million, despite their generational enhancements and Microsoft’s costly marketing campaigns.