The Microsoft Zune has become a major contender in the personal MP3 marketplace. They have carved out their nice of this market which is a very difficult marketplace to make inroads what with Apple so firmly dominating the MP3 market.

Because Microsoft has found itself in such direct competition with Apple in so many regards over the years they are trying to develop and move the Zune forward in such ways that it becomes a serious competitor for the iPod. They need to get some of the market share of personal devices away from Apple in order to have a viable hold in the marketplace.

Just when everyone thought that Apple couldn’t advance any further, they came out with the iPhone. The iPhone became the greatest selling phone of all time nearly overnight, and people still flock to stores to buy them when new shipments come in. That dominating popularity echoed the onset of the iPod years ago, and perhaps in a panic move to keep fighting their competition, Microsoft has announced the Zune phone that will be released sometime in the near future.

It makes sense that Microsoft would want a piece of the cellular market. They are not the only large company to announce their intent to try and make inroads into that lucrative new buying grounds. Google, for example has also expressed interest in that area. However, to announce a phone version of their MP3 player, which was purported once to the harbinger of the end for the iPod,(it clearly wasn’t) after the astounding success of the iPhone seems to be a move from a position of weakness. The Zune phone will have such features as interfacing better with the X-box 360 and presumably a host of new features as well. But any way the move is looked at, it just looks as if that the company is playing catch up to its competition.

The Zune phone may have been in development for a long time. It is difficult to tell because Microsoft has a history of saying that things they produce that resemble Apple’s have been in production for years. Which maybe just makes Apple the more efficient company.  It is tough to tell what is really going on, but to even come close to touching the iPhone, the Zune phone will have to offer more than anyone is anticipating yet at this point.