This week Amazon released the Echo Show and it is a fascinating product basically it builds on the Echo by adding video capability. This reminds me a bit of when Microsoft brought out the Zune and ran it against the Apple iPod a decade ago but with a very different dynamic. Back then Apple dominated the market and could argue compellingly that video was stupid largely because you couldn’t then get the rights to it so Zune’s video advantage was muted by the fact it was way too difficult to get video onto the device. Timing and content availability are the big differentiators.
Let’s revisit iPod vs. Zune
The Zune Failure vs. The iPod
One of the sad things about Microsoft Zune was that they tried to create another Xbox like success, they knew what they needed to do, but then Microsoft treated that list of must do things like it was multiple choice. For instance, because the iPod was dominant they knew they had to be able to move playlists seamlessly between the two platforms but didn’t execute and their big competitive advantage, the ability to share music, only worked if both parties had Zunes and that would have meant a more aggressive seeding program than Apple had and they didn’t execute that either. As noted above Microsoft’s Zune did play video but ripping DVDs was far more difficult than ripping CDs and the movie industry fought this practice far more aggressively than the record companies did so this “feature” was largely unused.
