Lango: was there an (e)?
Apple has likely reached a crucial strategic point, with both the iPod market well developed, and no simple product scale or capacity tweaks left in the quiver to capture the public's imagination. They'll continue to make the best durned music player out there, but will have to attach something new to differentiate "it" before the public's interest fades. I'm not smart enough at this point to figure it out, but I believe "it" involves expanding the iPod concept out to become a larger consumer electronics segment.
And I think MSFT musta figured this out after the initial shock of missing the music market entirely wore off. (Let's say they were distracted with that XBox thing, or perhaps, Vista QA.) Eating into iPod will hurt Apple dramatically. So this is their opportunity, and they have had the Flextronics types double timing it for a year or so, since the nano arrived.
So I think MSFT will try to be first to ship "it" and they'll ship "it" cheaper (or appear to). Apple could arrive late to the bleeding edge for the first time with a product not quite as conceptually easy to grasp as iPod, and MSFT will make the most of this by playing to excited contrarian media and grassrootsy user forum shootouts, etc.
The current FUD campaign is making some inroads, but only because the iPod story is stale, and Apple's not providing any new copy. These drums will continue to beat. Their timing will be important - how about this Christmas? Might deflect some criticism about a slipping Vista release. If they wait too long, Apple will get the upperhand again and Zune will likely fail...
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
