Microsoft, Verizon Gunning for Apple Marketshare with New Hardware Releases

I saw this article today and it made me think that sometimes these companies don't think about their consumer. They offer different features, but is it what the consumer wants? The answer is, quite frankly, no.

Microsoft released it's version 2 of the Zune and Verizon announced that it will go head to head with the iPhone with it's new, LG Voyager. All I have to say is whoopee do! Microsoft adds Wi-Fi into the mix and Verizon added a QWERTY keyboard. OK, I say wrong and wrong.

Microsoft, if you can here me, we don't care about wi-fi, we want DRM free music. We want ease of use and we want to own our own music. We want a standard format that we don't have to repurchase every piece of music we just bought because we just switched and your flavor of the month DRM scheme is different from the next guys. I don't care to share with my friends if they have to buy the music eventually. Let me spread the excitement about an artist easily. Free samples equate to purchases just ask any bakery this side of Redmond. I'm not suggesting that you can share a whole library but a few songs can't hurt.

As for you Verizon, I have one word for you... applications. Most people who have an iPhone don't complain about the keyboard, they complain that they can't install third party applications. By adding a QWERTY keyboard, you are not answering the real need, customization. If you want an iPhone killer, open your product to application developers. Scratch that, romance these application developers. Why are the Treo and Blackberry so popular? Because you can customize and install the applications that you need to be productive and/or entertained. A closed system is a dead system.

Verizon and Microsoft please see Amazon for your next lesson in iKillers. They got it right. Create a music store that is compatible with any player on the market, make the quality better and just for kicks, make the product cheaper. I've already bought an album that is not on the iTunes music store and the experience was great. The songs downloaded and went right into iTunes then onto my iPod. Bang! Make it easy, make it simple and most of all give the people what they want. Then and only then can you beat Apple at their own game.

Must I think of everything?