[Update!]
Zune 2 is official and details released
Hands on at Wired is here

summary:
"Say what you will about Microsoft, but its shown with things like the Xbox 360 that it can enter a market, and then learn a lot from customer feedback to improve its products, and I think they've done the same with Zune. They're aware that they have to play catch up, but they seem confident that they can get there."
--Mark McClusky @ Wired

One apple fanboy retorted that while "...Apple has finally found something it can dominate microsoft at. MS will always sell more computers and software than apple simply because they were the first to make it really simple to use and apple did the same with iPod. Microsoft may get close, but will never surpass the grandiose and pure boner laden goodness that apple has created with the ipod."

This is true but I'm very hopeful. Watching this launch is akin to watching a child take it's first steps. Microsoft, you're so close! Keep going---competition with the iPod monopoly is a good thing! I believe in your mountains of money that you have to throw at this!
[/Update]

I'm thinking about buying a Zune.
No, not one of their bloated and unattractive anti-social(see what we did there?) behemoths that are currently on shelves everywhere pining for an owner.
I'm talking about the rumored Flash-based Zune that has been kicked around for the past several months. The first and most obvious question from Apple fanboys is "Why, for the love of Jobs, why?!".
Well let's break it down:
They will be competing with the iPod monopoly before they even release leaked specs\pics. Just the name is synonymous with mobile music hilarity not just for the brick-like design, but for the obscure and often-times out-and-out strange \ disturbingly phallic ads that were released in a 'viral' fashion online. At best inexplicable and at worst drug-fueled, they did not so much encourage one to buy so much as to avoid. But, like the first gen Zune itself, setting that aside is on the highest level of priority when considering this purchase. But I digress.
The question of why:
Because as the owner of a 3G iPod, a current iPod Shuffle, I'm tired of iPods. To be honest I'm feeling a little over-saturated with their product and wanting something fresh and NEW that is actually worth the cost of investment. The Sansa e270 was an almost buy with its flash memory and -almost- enough size, but in the end storage capacity decided it. My sweet spot for music is anywhere between 8-10Gb, a void filled neatly by the iPod touch, taking me back to the over-saturation dilemma. The problem with all this is that the Flash Zune is, judging from MS's history, likely to be largely overlooked unless they address the problems with their finicky software,proprietary DRM and shockingly limited Wi-Fi.
Microsoft must deliver a polished UI not only of the device itself, but also a polished end-user environment on their PC's. As of yet the Zune has not done that, and unlike the Xbox, they have not found their equivalent Halo\Bungie combination to dent the iPod's halo effect and be one of the much vaunted 'killer apps' that this era of web logging has spawned.
Granted, this is a dim prognosis for the Zune (one might say terminal...) but let's not give up on Ballmer & Co. quite yet.
Look at the first generation iPod.
It was an ugly brick compared to the beautiful, glossy models of today and even the second generation. First generations are like that. I'm willing to give the Zune a try even if only for novelty's sake, but Redmond is going to have to meet me more than half-way, and unless a major shakeup has occurred in their Zune division.....well there's always hope.