Microsoft showed they haven't, as yet, given up the fight against Apple's iPod and iTunes yesterday with the launch of a new line of Zune digital music devices and the announcement of upgrades to their Zune Marketplace download service.
There were three new players, two of which are flash based devices, the first time Microsoft have released economy line players. The other is an 80GB hard drive model. All three have a touch screen control and include the WiFi sharing feature that was key to the original Zune player, although the sharing function has been revised lifting certain restrictions - users can only listen to shared tracks three times, but there is now no time limit for using the preview, and users can share already shared tracks with others (previously only someone with a bought track could share it).
The Zune etail operation, the Marketplace, is also being reinvented, with the addition of music videos and a social networking component called Zune Social.
Microsoft say they have sold 1.2 million Zune players to date, putting them in second place in the hard drive based player market, albeit someway behind Apple. Billboard say Microsoft now want to achieve second place in the flash player market, though there they will have to compete with a significant second place player in SansDisk, who hold a 10% market share, second to Apple's 74%.