Blackfriars’ Marketing: Microsoft tries to derail the iPod juggernaut with Universal deal

Blackfriars’ Marketing on the Microsoft-Universal $1-per-Zune deal:

While this sounds like a simple “we wanted to get a major music label on board deal”, it’s really an attempt to poison next year’s licensing contract renewal between Universal and Apple. After all, Microsoft is unlikely to sell more than two million Zunes in the next six months to a year, so this costs them little. But I estimate that Apple will sell nearly 20 million iPods just this quarter (more about that tomorrow), and hundreds of millions of songs as well.

★ Thursday, 9 November 2006