Zune: what is it good for?

Canadian Business Online: Analyst Survey Shows Microsoft's Zune Far Behind IPod in Big Box and Online Stores

I was obviously too quick to pull the trigger on the Craig Ferguson monologue, since apparently the market feels the same way, and I could have corroborated it with this:

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a note to investors Tuesday that a survey of clerks at 40 big box retailers found that only 8 percent recommend buying the Zune, while 75 percent recommend the iPod.
"In fact, some MP3 player salespeople had not even heard of the Zune, despite the fact that they sold it in their store," the analyst wrote.

I'm torn between reading that as a condemnation of Microsoft's marketing message, or of big box store's woefully inadequate training.

Maybe it's both.

On the one hand, with the cardinal exception of the original XBOX, and XBOX360, Microsoft has poor history with hardware, both on the IT/Network side, as well as on the consumer side (*cough* WebTV *cough*).

And on the other hand, big box CE retailers are doing an increasingly poor job of preparing their recruits to deliver even a reasonably level of service. If your staff is untrained to actually "sell" (and by sell I mean "listen to the customer, and make intelligent reccomendations based on what they tell you"), then business gets driven by the lowest price common denominator, margins decline, wages go down, brand image gets tarnished and everybody loses.

Back on track, what do you suppose it will take for a next-generation handheld to usurp the iPod?

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