Microsoft Tweets New Zune Hardware

A Microsoft employee posted word on his Twitter that new Zune hardware will be coming this year.

Brian Seitz of the Zune team tweeted simply, “new zune hardware this year.”

While word of new Zune shouldn’t be surprising, considering it’s an industry standard to refresh such devices on a regular basis, but comments from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hinted that company’s music player business could transition to a software-only model that it would license to other PMP manufacturers.

Ballmer said last month, “The question is whether even if we [Zunes] heavily, is their profit upside. … I won’t say full steam ahead, because that implies acceleration of investment, but we’re going to sustain our investment.”

The Microsoft CEO then let out that Zune could eventually become a software or ecosystem for other music players, perhaps like an iTunes system for all the non-iPods out there.

Of course, product development cycles are so far ahead that the upcoming hardware was probably well on it way even if Microsoft is still currently examining shifting its Zune business, we might not see it any time soon.