Poor marketing leads to Zune discounting

That didn't take long. Blackfriars had noted in January that Apple's iPhone announcement cut the legs out from under Microsoft's Zune marketing program. Well, it now appears that both OfficeMax and Office Depot are heavily discounting their Zunes to $179.99 and $199.99 respectively.. A quick Froogle check shows a variety of them available online at prices ranging from $219.99 to list. This just shows the business results a company gets when they choose to do extremely weird marketing.

However, to be fair, we should recognize another possibility: it's possible that Microsoft may be preparing a second generation Zune for launch, and these stores are dumping inventory in preparation for that event. After all, Microsoft has been pretty clear that this was just the first in a family of Zunes. And it wouldn't be a bad marketing plan to put out a new Zune in the months before "Dad and Grad" season. Let's just hope they refresh the marketing plan as well as the device.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Microsoft, OfficeMax, Office Depot, Zune