Ventura to replace Zune?

March 8, 2011 | By Surur

Zune on the way out?

Mary Jo Foley has been tipped of to a new Microsoft service in the offing. Ventura is a set of services being developed by Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices (E&D) unit which are focused on music and video discovery and consumption and is also described as a scalable services to enable interactive entertainment.

The service is expected to include recommendations, ratings and comments that according to a Microsoft job posting will involve Microsoft’s Azure cloud and the famous 3 screens, which would of course include Windows Phone 7.

The job post reads as below:

The Ventura Media Services team is looking for a highly motivated Software Development Engineer to help drive some great new service innovation.

Who are we? We are Ventura Media Services – an agile team working on the beginning of some very large scale projects. We incubate, innovate and iterate. We are all about building services the right way. The team is a tight group of music and video lovers that create services and experiences revolving around music\video discovery and consumption. We are not afraid to try new things in the name of pushing the bleeding edge of technology.

As a member of the team, you will work closely with all of our partners to release features on a rapidly iterative development cycle. You will get the chance to work with other IEB product teams to help deliver epic end-to-end scenarios across all 3 screens.

In this position you will have the chance to help choose direction and drive innovation on some of the most cutting edge media services. Think large scale. Think Azure. Being a web and services group, our goal is to release early and often while maintaining high quality. If you are a proven developer that likes to drive innovation, then this is the place for you!

Microsoft is not commenting, but a few scenarios present themselves. One is replacing Zune with a web client with emphasis on streaming and the other is integrating with Bing search results in some way.

Does Microsoft has something interesting up their sleeve? Let us know your ideas below.

Thanks Just Visiting for the tip

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 ventura, windows phone 7, zune

http://twitter.com/dustbeta @dustbeta

I agree. And even it was a front end replacement for Zune, the Ventura name is likely an internal code name. Doesn't sound like a good name for something they'd throw out there to the public.

Moki

Maybe they could get Jesse Ventura to promote it?

http://www.facebook.com/J88NYR Jonny Rose

I dont see why they would change from Zune now, the brand it begining to get pace, alot of the people in the UK know of it now and like it.
GP007

I'll wait for some solid info on what this is exactly, back-end services or front-end? Zune is a brand that's started to move now that MS has expanded it to more of Europe and also added the client to the 360 and WP7. It wouldn't be that good to change it for no real reason, I mean why? It's starting to gain share, and a good chunk as well, so I don't see the need to change the name. Just start to advertise it more and add more of the services to more countries.
lowreview

Umm Zune is already integrated with Bing results …
http://www.bing.com/music/songs/search?q=pink%20f…

http://www.facebook.com/wixostrix Edwin Michael Rodriguez-Duplesis

The Bing and Zune integration, IMO is terrible. Microsoft is once again creating conflicting brands, Bing Muisc and Zune, and there is a huge disconnect between them:

– Bing aggragates these lyrics that are nowhere to be found on the Zune side.
– Content gets added to Zune but it doesn't show up in Bing for days.
– You can play any track once on Bing, but if you were browsing through Zune.net there is only a 30 second preview (if you aren't a Zune Pass subscriber)
– You can't create simple playlists on Bing like you on Zune.net
– You can purchase tracks with cash on Bing but are forced to use points on Zune

I understand the Bing Entertainment area is version 1 but they should have worked a lot closer (the Bing and Zune teams) to make it a more cohessive experience.

chrislynchhp

It's not two different brands. Bing Music Results is POWERED BY ZUNE. It's supposed to be a portal INTO Zune, not it's own client. IN fact, when you search for an artist, click on the Music tab, then select a track to play, the Web Player is then launched, which is the Zune Web Client.

I agree that Bing and Zune need to work closer, but the Zune team is really small ATM. It will get better over time. The question is, how long with that take?!?

http://www.facebook.com/wixostrix Edwin Michael Rodriguez-Duplesis

I know it's not actually a brand, but that's how it appears. It doesn't say Bing Music with a powered by Zune underneath. And I am aware it opens in a web-based Zune player, but it's different. It will only play one song at a time, you can't create a playlist which is what I was getting at.

I support and defend Zune all the time, I know they are small, which is why I'm calling Microsoft out on it.

http://twitter.com/EJ1024 @EJ1024

Wt hell, ZUNE is a lot better than this name, just keep marketing windows phone. All this crap msft is trying to do is annoying
majg

Ventura is a codename. I would hope they'd keep Zune as a brand.
http://www.facebook.com/chris.lynch.hp Chris Lynch

@aschettler9376 I agree. This absolutely makes the most amount of sense. This is most likely a way for Microsoft to finally move away from Level 3, who is the service provider for Zune services here in the US.
Xyz

Could be a YouTube competitor.
Talys

Ventura is a dumb name. Makes me think of the GEM-based desktop publishing program Ventura, that was later reincarnated as Corel Ventura. PageMaker was the easy to use alternative, Ventura was better for long documents. It was actually not bad software… twenty years ago.
Crucial

It would be much for effective to extend the support of zune marketplace to other countries rather than developing a new software because Zune is already gaining popularity. Come on Microsoft, set your priorities right! Get Zune Marketplace support to as many countries as possible. Also push WP7 marketplace to different countries as soon as possible. Consumers will only purchase the phone only if it provides native support and not because there's a new "unheard" music software!
Iggy

Remember PlaysForSure.

PlaysForSure was Microsoft's music service. It crashed and burned, and burned the fingers of both consumers and OEMs that adopted it.
http://twitter.com/bkwmiata @bkwmiata

It would be nice if this were a Netflix competitor, something via Zune, WP7 and Xbox live. Similiar to what they have now but with streaming instead of download only.

chrislynchhp

Xbox Live already does instant streaming. It's the Zune client that doesn't perform any instant streaming. And WP7 doesn't have direct access into the Video Marketplace. I would expect MS to evolve this over time.