A Business Wire report today states that a new survey conducted by ABI Research has shown that many prospective MP3 player buyers-even owners of iPods-would be likely to choose Microsoft’s Zune player. 1725 teenage and adult US residents were asked whether they planned to buy an MP3 player in the next 12 months. Of those responding that they were likely to do so, 58% of those identifying themselves as existing iPod owners and 59% of those who owned other brands said they would be “somewhat likely” or “extremely likely” to choose a Microsoft Zune player over an iPod or another brand of MP3 player.

“Our conclusion,” says principal analyst Steve Wilson “is that iPod users don’t display the same passionate loyalty to iPods that Macintosh users have historically shown for their Apple products.” Only 15% of iPod owners said they were “not very likely” or “not at all likely” to choose Zune.

So is Zune attractive enough to build anything like iPod’s massive sales record? ABI Research believes that a critical factor will be whether or not Microsoft can differentiate the Zune from competing products in some meaningful way. One differentiator, Zune’s Wi-Fi peer-to-peer sharing, which Microsoft is playing up heavily, “isn’t all that compelling, at least not now,” notes Wilson. “There’s a lot more you could do with that capability.”

But given the results of ABI Research’s survey, Apple will need to make some big announcements in 2007 if it is to maintain its edge in the industry. Says Wilson, “Apple needs a new high-end device that works really well and looks really cool, because other brands are catching up.”

Methodology: data contained within this report is derived from a Web-based survey among a nationally-balanced and demographically-representative sample of 1,725 online consumers (age 18 and older). The consumer survey was conducted in October 2006. Respondents were provided a photo and description of the Microsoft Zune device before being asked about their likelihood to choose it over a competitive MP3 player.

I Don’t Buy It

While ABI is without a doubt a reputable research firm, I just don’t take their survey findings all too seriously. Although we’ll have a better picture of the real stats sometime in January, I doubt that we’ll even see Microsoft’s Zune register a gain of more than low single digits this holiday season.

While I happen to agree with Mr. Wilson’s assessment that Apple needs to release a really cool next gen iPod next year, I think that’s all but assured. A number of Apple’s published patents covered by MacNN have confirmed that Apple has a number of great features on the horizon. The most recent of these patents in fact illustrates a chameleonic form of the iPod which will introduce a next generation of device controls which are known as virtual controls. Virtual controls are light based thereby doing away with physical controls that are present on today’s iPod’s. The patent describes that the user will be able to change the functionality of their iPod from that of an MP3 player to that of a PDA, cell phone, games player or GPS device on-the-fly. So yes Mr. Wilson, Apple will likely be launching a really cool high-end iPod by this time next year, if not a lot earlier. Time will tell.

Yet without going too far out into the future, I’ll leave it for now that I just don’t buy into the survey’s results that 58% of iPod owners could switch to Microsoft’s Zune. It just sounds like a lot of hot air and hopeful thinking on the part of Redmond, in my humble opinion, and nothing more. The question is, however, do you buy into today’s survey findings.

Written and researched by Neo.