Microsoft's media player is called Zune

After weeks of speculation that Microsoft was planning an iPod-killer, the software giant finally confirmed that company will, later this year, launch Zune, an umbrella brand for "a family of hardware and software products". The first implementation of this will be the portable music player and digital music service that will take iPod-iTunes offering head-on. The hard-drive based wireless player will be shown off at the end of the month with a launch planned before christmas season.