Microsoft Confirms Zune's Existence

Microsoft has officially confirmed the existence of its homegrown media player, giving an exclusive interview to Billboard magazine that appeared in the publication Friday. Under the Zune brand, the company will begin release a line of players along with a companion music software service that is completely controlled by Microsoft.

As first reported by BetaNews late Thursday, the Redmond giant plans to begin to show off the initial player publicly beginning as early as the last week in August, with another round of demonstrations the second week of September.

This would be followed by a wave of marketing activity preceding the devices launch in October of this year. However, beyond the initial devices launch, MSN Entertainment marketing vice president Chris Stephenson said the brand would be used for "a family of hardware and software products."

Zune's confirmation and its structure seems to be an admission of failure by Microsoft. It's former strategy of allowing an open platform where its partners could develop players while the company maintained a hands-off approach has not worked, and Apple controls nearly 75 percent of the market.

JupiterResearch vice president and research director Michael Gartenberg said that fans of Microsoft should not expect market share to come from "disgruntled iPod users."

"The real losers in the short term are likely to be the likes of Creative, iRiver and other former partners that have failed to deliver to market share from Apple and will now find themselves not only competing with Apple but with their former partners from Redmond," Gartenberg said.