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Microsoft: It Takes $30K to Fill an iPod

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 9:50 AM - by Jeff Gamet

Microsoft is extending its message that Apple products are too expensive to include the iPod by telling consumers that they need to spend US$30,000 to fill their media player with music. The solution they offer is to buy a Zune pass -- and by extension a Zune media player -- and use their music subscription service instead.

The ad claims that at a dollar a song, it would take about $30,000 to fill a 120GB iPod with music, but that for $14.95 a month users could have as much music as they want. To add to the credibility of that claim, Microsoft has hired financial planner Wes Moss as their pitch man.

The ad fails to mention that users can add the music from their own CDs to the player for free, and that if a Zune music subscriber fails to pay their monthly service fee they lose their music.

Microsoft has also produced a series of commercials that show consumers choosing PC laptops running Windows over Macs because of price. This new trend in advertising out of Redmond has a common theme: Microsoft-based products aren't better, just cheaper.

[Thanks to ars technica for the heads up.]

9 comments from the community.

You can post your own below.

secret_agent said:

May 12th, 2009 at 9:33 AM

Comical. There are a lot of kids in my hood (Harlem) with $30k laying around…

   Quote

Jacob said:

May 12th, 2009 at 9:37 AM

@secret_agent

No, but they have bittorrent and limewire laying around.

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secret_agent said:

May 12th, 2009 at 9:44 AM

That they do, Jacob. Thanks for pointing out the punch line to my obvious sarcasm.

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Sir Harry Flashman said:

May 12th, 2009 at 10:24 AM

iPods are for more than just music, you can also add photos and video that you may have created yourself. I guess you can do the same with the Zune.

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Doug said:

May 12th, 2009 at 12:25 PM

Um, wasn’t there another campaign that was exactly the same?  Anybody remember how it turned out, because I can’t remember who did that campaign anymore myself.

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gopher said:

May 12th, 2009 at 3:35 PM

Of course Apple could retort, it may cost $500 for a Dell laptop, but $2000 for data recovery if a virus totally zaps your data.

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gslusher said:

May 12th, 2009 at 5:42 PM

Re: Doug

It was Napster. See the similarly-themed thread on The Mac Observer.

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jimothy said:

May 12th, 2009 at 7:23 PM

Doug: That you and I couldn’t remember, until gslusher pointed it out, answers the “how did it turn out” question.

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James said:

May 12th, 2009 at 8:14 PM

Bah. I’m a music fan, a real one. I buy albums. Lots of them. People like me have kept that industry in afloat the past decade. I do love the convenience of downloads, but I will never pay for a music “subscription”. So dumb. Microsoft still has this so backwards it isn’t even funny anymore. I really don’t think they’ll ever get it, and I really do believe that we are in for truly platform agnostic times in the years ahead; this is just more of their last gasping if you ask me. Niche, meet Microsoft, Microsoft meet niche.

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