Slow tempo for Zune sales in US

Though Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPod officially went on sale in the US on Tuesday, the Zune wasn't exactly flying off the shelves in downtown San Francisco, reports CNET.co.uk's sister site News.com. 

At two retail outlets, the new media player wasn't even on the shelves. The Virgin Megastore near Union Square had them in stock, but the Zune display wasn't the right fit for the shop's shelving. The players would be on sale "sometime this week" when new signage was scheduled for delivery, said a Virgin Megastore representative.

Zunes were also absent from the digital audio player display at the nearby CompUSA. "We were supposed to get them, but somehow they got delayed," an employee said. He did, however, add that there had been interest -- about 15 people had enquired about the Zune that morning.

Radio Shack was a similar story, but shipping problems were not to blame. The shop is not yet scheduled to sell the Zune, said John Nashed, assistant manager of the Market Street outlet. He estimated that four customers had shown interest in buying one on the morning of release.

But there was a steady flow of interested customers at Best Buy just before lunch time. A stream of mostly men sauntered up to the brown Zune, wedged between a lineup of satellite radios and other handheld devices.

"We've sold ten already today," said Best Buy general manager Ben Bagwell, adding that most of the shop's customers tend to arrive later in the afternoon. "The Zune's actually been doing pretty well, better than I expected", he commented.  

Though he didn't discern a trend toward a particular colour -- brown, black or white -- gift giving was on most customers' minds. "We've had some business customers interested in possibly giving them away as holiday gifts," Bagwell said.

Ralph Lindsey, the owner of a second-generation iPod, was browsing the Zune display. He said that while he was not planning to make a purchase, he liked the Zune's wider screen. Since he would want to watch videos on the player, however, he was "concerned" about the Zune's storage capacity: "I'm not sure 30GB will be enough".

Ron McIntyre echoed this concern. A self-described audiophile, the Best Buy customer and iPod owner called the Zune "pretty cool". "I'm not sure if it's something I'd be interested in because of the size of the hard drive, but all the features on it are pretty neat," he said. "The screen is pretty clear -- it's got brightness controls, which I don't have on my iPod. The wireless technology sounds cool, but I obviously can't sample that here, so I don't know how well that will work."

One feature earning lots of attention -- but little consensus -- is the colour. Lindsey was adamant, "brown is definitely not appealing", while another shopper said "the colours are right on".

"If you look at Europe, that's right where they're at", said Laate Olukotun, a product designer casually inspecting the brown Zune. "The dual colour, the green (edge), is really intriguing."

Though Olukotun also said the Microsoft player's design was "too chunky", he added, "The fact that they went with a wider screen, to me, that is a really smart move".

At the time of writing, the Zune was ranked at No. 6 on Amazon.com's list of top-selling electronics. Versions of the iPod, however, were ranked at No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4.