The Zune is dead, long live the Zune!

Microsoft's Zune was never a serious competitor to Apple's iPod–not in terms of sheer sales volume, at least. And after barely five years of sluggish, mediocre sales, the Zune hardware has, reportedly, been killed off. However, the part of the Zune that was almost universally praised–its software–will live on, says Business Insider, as Microsoft intends to integrate elements of it into its Windows Phone 7 mobile OS as well as the XBox. A good decision on Microsoft's part, as they can now focus all their mobile-device efforts on WP7 phones. Maybe this means we'll see an in-house designed smartphone in the future. Read on in Bloomberg's report. {jcomments on}