Yahoo Finance R.I.P Zune and Betamax, finally headed for the tech dustbin
We’ve become accustomed to the fast pace of technological change. We’re conditioned to upgrade our mobile phones every couple of years and tossing out perfectly good TVs and computers when something newer goes on the market.
So it’s unlikely you’ll have time to mourn the passing of the Zune music player or the Betamax video recording format.
Last Sunday, Nov. 15, marked the last day Zune owners could download or stream music for Microsoft’s decade-old Apple iPod fighter. Microsoft said subscribers to the service could transition to its Groove Music Pass for other devices but their Zune players would be orphaned, though still capable of playing existing MP3s.
Coincidentally, Sony announced this week that it will stop selling Betamax cassettes next March. I know, I didn’t think you could still buy them, either. Apparently they are still available in Japan more than a decade after Sony stopped making the home recorders themselves.
The demise of Betamax and Zune illustrate two different roads to failure.
Sony pioneered home video recording with the introduction of Betamax in 1975, marketing it with the slogan “Watch whatever whenever.” Time shifting was born.
Its competitors soon came out with their own formats despite Sony’s hope Beta would become the industry standard.
Our family briefly owned a Sanyo V-Cord machine, whose videotape cassettes looked like eight-track audio cassettes. We quickly returned it after discovering you couldn’t get blank cassettes anywhere.
VHS becomes Beta’s main rival
JVC (Matsushita) emerged with VHS, which became Beta’s real rival. The recording format was lower quality but offered double the recording time and lower-priced machines. More electronics firms adopted it and by the mid-1980s, Beta was largely the choice only of hard-core videophiles and professional videographers.
Being first to market didn’t help Sony when it wasn’t agile enough to respond to the VHS threat.
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Zune, by contrast, was an example of being a day late and a dollar short.
Microsoft belatedly saw the potential of personal MP3 players and produced the Zune as its answer to the popular iPod. But despite good reviews, Zune found itself a step behind. As Zune was hitting the market, Apple came out with the iPod Touch. Touch screens would now be de rigueur.
The PC computer giant was also late to the party with the Zune Pass downloadable music service after Apple iTunes became a must-have.
Whatever happened to the PalmPilot?
We’ve all rolled the dice on dead-end technologies. Somewhere in a desk drawer I have a PalmPilot, the personal digital assistant (PDA) that was in every busy professional’s hands in the 1990s and early 2000s. You could track your appointments and maintain contact lists on its LCD screen, sharing the information with your computer.
But then came smart phones.
The shift from old-school TVs with their bulky cathode-ray tubes to slim and increasingly higher-resolution flat-screens was a no-brainer, especially as price tumbled.
But electronics manufacturers keep pushing the envelope. Just a couple of years ago, 3D TV was the Next Big Thing. Today, in the absence of programs shot in that format and the unwillingness of people to either wear 3D glasses or sit in the viewing sweet spot to watch it, the format seems dead. Now, it’s 4K or Ultra HD.
But don’t get too attached to those either. Who knows what we’ll be scoping out on Black Friday 2020?
