Zune Pass and other services promised to expand to more countries

June 8, 2011 | By Surur

Joe

Joe Belfiore ( Corporate Vice President, Windows Phone Program Management ), who seems a bit more vocal on Twitter these days (must be that twitter integration in Mango ) has tweeted that Microsoft will expand many of their services beyond the US and the UK, including Zune Pass and support for speech services, for example searching by voice.

The lack of these services in many countries have been a major issue for many of our readers and is felt to be an Achilles heel for the platform. Providing a fuller service outside of US is essential if Nokia it to retain buyers in their major markets, which are invariably elsewhere.

Via 1800Pocketpc.com

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 news, windows phone 7

Kamalesh BN

I still doubt anything is coming to India

http://twitter.com/TheBigM72 Samil Shah

India will be a massive market, maybe things won’t happen straight away but they will happen. Maybe it will be Nokia services rather than Bing ones.

Kamalesh BN

Well , I just got a Samsung Omnia 7…. I want Bing ones … Anyway, I hope everything will come to india, again.. I highly doubt it..

Dvaderanakin

hey samil and kamalesh..how is windows phone usage in india. i have ordered myself a lg optimus 7. are you able to access market place and other stuff?

http://twitter.com/ObieOdot Gabriel

Come to Germany you nice little MS services.
James

Australia! Hurry! Android hasn’t taken off yet. Windows Phone can squeeze in here

http://twitter.com/travisnew87 Travis New

Straight up truth. I want Zune Pass so bad in Australia!

Kazi

Wow, Zune marketplace and Zune pass for hungary please
http://www.facebook.com/people/Milad-Bazzaz/100000479683479 Milad Bazzaz

Great news!

Lets be honest…we all hear its a war of ecosystems. Well in order for WP7 to be competitive, they need to up their ante outside of the US because in most countries there is no “ecosystem”. Microsoft is one of the biggest and most successful companies in the world and yet their global footprint in many of their services is barely apparent.

Location based services, Bing, Zune pass, Marketplace access, etc. all need major upgrades in terms of reach. Its easier said than done but if you want to compete with Google and the fruity company, you have to expand your services.

Microsoft could also benefit A LOT if people start using their services because it gives them way more revenue / information to improve those services over time. At some point though there needs to be a start.

I’m convinced they have the competences and resources. Its just that they need to commit to be ding it.
Ompasikom

south east asia countries please!
Anonymous

rant

Wow, speech 12 months later (it could have been years!)!
But don’t worry, they already said that neither local scout nor podcasts are gonna be available for non-US users (well, maybe UK too).
And so far they did nothing to improve bing search, maps, local search and reviews (all tight integrated within WP), stating that such a move would require unspecified fine-tunings which, evidently, the competitors (google!) are able to apply in a much faster and satisfying manner.

So Joe, I really like you, but please just be ashamed until you guys fix that attitude and become a global company: you just make it seem like MS is still slapping international users in the face, only a little less hard.

/rant

http://www.facebook.com/people/Milad-Bazzaz/100000479683479 Milad Bazzaz

while I agree in general that they have let down international customers, a lot of the Zune pass issues are due to legal restrictions. Microsoft WOULD if they were allowed to but they are not. I know that they have worked hard to get Zune pass to Germany but they haven’t been able to find an agreement with the local labels /regulatory instances. They ask for too much for every streamed song (10 cent).

Microsoft has to find a balance (cost/performance) to keep the zune pass affordable and appealing for the customers and so far they haven’t been able to.

The UK is a lot like the US…very liberal. But countries like Germany are very restrictive and much harder to penetrate than other markets. They like to forfend their domestic market.

Bugbog

and you can’t tell your customers, for fear of pissing off your suppliers!

Soosan

To be honest they can keep Zune, there are plenty alternatives (evne legal ones) to getting music. I want to see Bing features. It’s powering features that can’t or are difficult to get an alternative for like location based search on WP7.

http://www.facebook.com/nizzon Johan Nilsson

Exactly. Screw Zune.
Give us Swedes better maps integration, local scout and all that cool stuff.

I bet MS will never fix this themselves, they will rely on halfassed 3rd party apps.
Such a shame.

http://www.facebook.com/thomas.bundgaard Thomas Bundgaard

If anyone should be interested, Zune Pass will probably not make it to Denmark in the near future. According to a guy on Facebook (who works at MS), they will probably bet on 3rd party solutions for streaming music.

I’m quite sure, this is because of KODA (the danish pendant to RIAA) are a bunch of idiotic morons.. but still, I would like Zune Pass
Anonymous

I really think we’re going to be dissapointed, I would really like all services to be available worldwide but I think they are only going to become available in a handful of countries like France, Germany,… I really hope we’re going to get these services in Switzerland, but I think I might just be dreaming seeing as Bing is still in Bêta here.

James

Haha, Bing Beta is the same in Australia and probably every other non-US/UK country. Getting out of beta probably is getting full functionality

http://www.andrewtechhelp.com/ Andrew Tech Help

Bing is in Beta in every country except for the US, UK & France.
Yet, France still doesn’t get full WP7 Bing Functionality.

Zowniak

What about Scout?
What about downloaded podcast in Zune?
What about Bing Map?

I am really fed up with US-centric Microsoft services.
MS realize just now ???
http://www.andrewtechhelp.com/ Andrew Tech Help

I’ve got a table of the current worldwide availability of Windows Phone 7 Services such as Bing & Zune here: http://andrewtechhelp.com/andrews-tech-opinions/126-windows-phone-7-feature-availability-matrix-the-mango-edition

I will continue to update this table throughout the next few months as Microsoft makes their announcements!

yves707

very sad situation for non-usa-users. please change that ms!!!! you have the power to do that!!

thanks for the link
yves707

very sad situation for non-usa-users. please change that ms!!!! you have the power to do that!!

thanks for the link

Ron Koh Ri Rong

I believe Zune pass will become less missed as Mango ships. Third party apps will be able to have music hub integration and multitask. Bing services I dont really care that much… except for Maps…
http://www.appatic.com Avatar X

Hope Zune Pass finally gets support for Mexico and our Canadian friends.
Anonymous

Quick, put it in Hong Kong please? Maybe with nokia phones with their Ovi Maps (no offense, but bing sucks here…some roads are actually “missing” lol)
come on!!!!

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