stuart test blog

The rumour mill is buzzing around Microsoft’s plans to release their own portable media player which will compete directly with the iPod. I’m losing track about what is fact or fiction here so take the following with a pinch of salt, bu this is what we know so far:

• The media player will be released by Christmas
• It will have a larger screen than the current iPod with video
• It will have a wireless connection to allow downloads on the go
• Microsoft will match the songs that you’ve purchased from iTunes with songs provided by them for free

This does sound pretty exciting and I do think that Microsoft have the ability to pull it off, but whether they succeed or not will be determined later. Their recent release of the UMPC showed how they can build up great buzz around a product which could never be able to live up to the hype.

I personally think that Microsoft already have the iPod killer – the PocketPC. If they can somehow squeeze a mini hard drive and a solid 10 or more hours of battery life, they will have a device that can not only play music and videos, but also have a built in camera, wireless access which provides internet and email connections, as well as the raft of other PocketPC apps that are already out there.