So the pre-sales hype cycle's over and it's time for the real battle to begin. Let's make no bones about it - Microsoft is aiming its sights on Apple and the prize is the hearts, minds and, most importantly, the wallets of music lovers everywhere.

Will you Zune? Looks pretty but it is Version 1

Let's take a quick look at the Zune to see what it offers and whether it will be enough to change a market.

WiFi

Microsoft's hoping to harness the power of social networking and use the Zune as a way of creating ad hoc communities between users. Personally, I think that the use of WiFi is part of the future plan and that the initial implementation is a little half-arsed. At the moment, it works through Zune users making a verbal agreement to send songs to each other - no on-screen interaction. Personally, I'm all for people actually talking to each other but it takes away the cool value to do it like this.

Sharing Songs

The Zune lets users share songs but there's some fine print. For starters, a shared song can only be played three times. After that it disappears (I hope that part of the software works and doesn't decimate your library accidentally. Secondly you have to play the song within three days or it disappears.

What we end up with is a sharing systems that's difficult to initiate, not very cool and limits use of the shared song.

DRM

Obviously, the automatic deletion of songs is there to appease the record companies but what about other elements of the DRM? Microsoft invested heavily in its Plays for Sure partnership with other music player manufacturers. Plays for Sure DRM is NOT supported on the Zune. That means that if you purchased a library for your Sandisk Sansa for example, the only way to play them on your Zune to either repurchase or burn to a CD and then re-rip the music.

This is so dumb it's beyond words.

Desktop Software

Microsoft's invested heavily in the development of Windows media Player. It's now at Version 11 and very nice product. So why does the Zune come with it's own software that doesn't integrate with Media Player? And just to rub salt into that wound there are widespread reports that the Zune software is buggy with many users unable to even install it.

The Hardware

By all accounts (I haven't got a Zune yet so I'm relying on the opinions of respected journos like David Pogue, Walt Mossberg and others here) the screen is very good and there are varying views on the effectiveness of the controls. It's larger and heavier than the iPod. In my mind, to capture the iPod market it has to be significantly better than the iPod and, at this time, i don't see that it is (I'm an iPod owner and I might be biased on that score).

The choice of colours is nice.

Price

The Zune's price has been set to be the same as the 30GB iPod. That's OK but not world shattering. If it's not substantially better than the iPod it needs to be MUCH cheaper - about $75 USD less than the iPod.

So, how do I score it?

Let's grade each of the elements

WiFi - 6/10 - nice idea that's not well executed
Sharing - 5/10 - too hard to do, needs to be intuitive
DRM - 4/10 - Plays for Sure = abandonware
Desktop Software - 4/10 - sheer stupidity
The hardware - 7/10 - sure it' heavy but big screen and pretty colours
Price - 5/10 - not competitive enough

Overall - 5/10 - about normal for any Microsoft Version 1

My sincere hope is people don't buy Zune V1 but that Microsoft persists. That'll force the folks at Redmond to improve the product. That's a good thing as I reckon versions 2 and 3 will be the real threats to iPod's dominance. I doubt that Apple's worried today but I think they'll be looking long and hard at their future plans.