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Users Report 'Y2K For Zunes' As Internal Clock Goes Awry

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The Associated Press

Published: December 31, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO - Happy New Year from Microsoft Corp.: Your Zune is dead.

Thousands of Microsoft's Zune media players — the software company's answer to Apple Inc.'s iPod — unexpectedly conked out today and showed users an error message, prompting references to "Y2K for Zunes." The problems appeared when people tried to start up their devices.

Frustrated users lit up Microsoft's online support forum for Zunes with more than 2,500 messages by this afternoon.

Late today, the Redmond, Wash.-based company said the outage affected only the 30-gigabyte Zune models and was caused by a problem with their internal clock. Microsoft expects the problem to clear up as the clocks tick over to Thursday, though users will have to jump through some hoops to get their Zunes back to normal, including letting the batteries die down completely before the devices will restart successfully.

The crash of so many Zunes drew comparisons to the Y2K programming problem that stoked fears of a widespread computer meltdown in 2000 when the machines ticked over to the new millennium.

Zunes have paltry popularity compared with iPod, which owns nearly three-quarters of the MP3 market. Zunes have a single-digit market share, according to statistics from the NPD Group. But some users are fiercely loyal, and newer Zunes have gotten positive reviews.

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