Porting Zune to Mac wouldn’t be easy. Both Zune and iTunes still have DRM solutions baked in (how else do you expect those movie rentals to expire?), and Microsoft would need to make their DRM work on the Mac, as well as installing important codecs (WMA, WMV) to make sure the software runs smoothly. This shouldn’t be completely onerous, though.
Sheer volume isn’t the main benefit. We all know about the 5%-or-so worldwide Mac share. But “worldwide computing share” isn’t the Zune target market. The only Zune that really exists anymore is the Zune HD, an expensive and stylish touchscreen device for cutting-edge media lovers. (The other Zunes are supported, but no longer manufactured and once they’re sold out, they’re gone.) It’s also only sold in the U.S., which potentially Canada and other Western European countries on the docket for the not-too-distant future. That’s exactly the Mac demographic. These are the demographics where Macbooks are just killing.
So yes, you’re absolutely giving up a significant number of sales when you don’t support Zune on the Mac OS. What is perhaps more important is that such a move could serve as the analog of Apple’s decision in 2003 to bring iTunes and iPods to Windows. For them, it was about tapping a superior marketshare, but also (and very importantly) to introduce Windows “drones” to the design savvy and user interface ease that are part of the Apple experience. Now, you have a chance to do the same thing. You’ll capture some marketshare among the high-end, high-style market the Zune HD primarily targets, but at the same time, you’ll show the Apple fans that Microsoft is, contrary to popular belief, capable of making software and devices as pretty, smooth, and usable as Apple. Then maybe, just maybe, some of those Macbook converts will make their next notebook a Windows 7 PC.
The inevitable idea that keeping Zune’s “locked” to PCs creates an incentive for people to buy Windows computers in order to run it is completely wrongheaded. On the contrary, it prevents “switchers” to PC because nobody has devices and software already working with their current Mac. It prevents those users from really experiencing what’s so great about your stuff by trying it out themselves. It’s an incentive that is easily dismissed, and in reality serves as a hindrance to adoption. I don’t know, haven’t met, and have never even read a comment from a Mac user that even remotely considers Zune compatibility as a potential reason to get a Windows PC (usually, if they’re at all interested in such a purchase, PC games are the cited reason).
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