Europe shafted again – No ZuneHD in Europe this year

September 10, 2009 | By Surur

In an interview with Mobinaute, Francois Ruault, director of the division entertainment and terminals of Microsoft France made it clear the much hyped new media player from Microsoft will not be making the trip across the Atlantic any time soon.

"I’m not saying the Zune HD will never leave US, but for now, we have no intention of marketing (it here)” he said, adding it was not expected to come to Europe before the end of this year.

This does come as a blow to many who were hoping for an attractive alternative to Apple’s iPod Touch franchise, and continues Microsoft’s inexplicable ignoring of the worldwide market for their media players, in markets where they may very well have made more progress than in US, which is Apple’s strongest market.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged zune, zunehd

Paul

Another nail in the coffin.
Drewidian

Finally!!!! I’m definitely not going to cry over this since they get all of the WM phones first and we are usually last! Thank Goodness Microsoft is in the US for once.
bdghdfns

no problem MS, if you don´t want our money, skip us. We can switch to Apple, no problem for us
Doz

I wouldn't want to send cool products to countries who constantly fine and sue me either. They'd probably use it as a new way to fine Microsoft anyway.
EludiumQ36

Does no one remember what the EU did to Microsoft in the '90s ?! Be surprised that Microsoft does business there at all anymore.
fused

sorry MSFT, thist is plain stupid.

http://cid-22e4b3c84a047b5a.spaces.live.com/default.aspx wreiad

What's stupid? They simply said it won't be coming this year, not that it won't be coming at all. It's not exactly easy to have a simultaneous worldwide launch of a product.

Argh

Agreed. The issue is probably getting the worldwide arrangements made with the recording labels rather than the actual hardware distribution though (after all, they have alot of experience with selling mice/keyboards etc. as well as software all over the world).

However, the lack of international support will limit their chances of success a lot.
http://intensedebate.com/people/MikeWard1701 MikeWard1701

"It's not exactly easy to have a simultaneous worldwide launch of a product"

Yet Apple manage to pull it off with few problems.

http://cid-22e4b3c84a047b5a.spaces.live.com/default.aspx wreiad

Again, they said it won't be coming this year, not that it won't be coming at all. It's like being upset over Apple not initially giving the iPhone a simultaneous worldwide launch. You should be more realistic rather than demand irrational perfection, and understand that things take time and money (Duh).

guy

France is all of Europe?
Nagrom Nniuq

Screw Europe lol. They screw MS over and over again about not including other browsers (TOTAL BS!) and fine MS and abuse MS and then whine when MS says SCREW YOU! I laugh. I wish MS would say, "We are no longer going to carry or allow any MS products to be used outside the US."
meme

yes nagrom, screw Europe, leave it all Apple land ! If there is no MS , the Apple percentage would increase more and more and one day they would overrun MS. If this is what you want…..
Nagrom Nniuq

LOL! Apple will NEVER overrun MS. You can quote me on that. They have been trying for decades…
John

Marc is right the source is PCWorld.fr not Mobinaute, Mobinaute (and all their sister sites) NEVER link to the original stories, bunch of thiefs. (oh I see that they edited the story and added a link to PCworld'shomepage now, not directly to the story though)