Understatement for the day

An article by Thomas Claburn at InformationWeek.com about the current Zune problem summed it up:

The incident is unlikely to help Microsoft gain ground against Apple's iPod, which accounts for about three-quarters of the digital music player market.

Microsoft has posted its take on the situation:

"Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30-GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used)," Microsoft said in an e-mail. "The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. That being the case, the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30-GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you're a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device."

Rico says Steve Jobs is undoubtedly laughing all the way to the bank...