Report: Microsoft killing the Zune; giving up effort to ‘loosen iPod’s stranglehold on the iPod market’

In what may be the only way anyone would notice, Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft is dropping its Zune media player, and would incorporate the technology into other devices such as phones and its XBox gaming platform. Microsoft introduced the Zune in 2006 as a competitor to Apple’s iPhone.

The Bloomberg article outlines the Zune’s reception as an “iPod killer,” including Talk Show Host Craig Ferguson’s observation that the device was Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates’s bid to “loosen iPod’s stranglehold on the iPod market.”