Zune approved by FCC, confirmed as a repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat

Posted August 25, 2006 at 11:52 PM by Doug Berger

Section: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Today the Microsoft Zune officially made its debut in the FCC archives.  It has all of the expected features included: 30GB hard drive, FM tuner, 3 inch screen, WiFi, etc.  The strange thing that we learned today is that the Zune isn’t even manufactured by Microsoft.  It’s an OEM version of the Toshiba Gigabeat.  Ironic because that was the rumor floating around last week that nobody believed.  According to a source close to Zune, the product will be sold and marketed as a Microsoft product, and was only re-branded like this to make it in time for a Christmas launch.  Microsoft is expected to take over production after the initial launch.

Other items that surfaced in the FCC filings were some more code names: Pyxis and Argo.  Pyxis (which we’re assuming is pronounced Pices the fish), is looking like it’s going to be Microsoft’s content sharing network.  The “DJing Content” section of the documents mentions “Pyxis allows you to stream music to up to 4 other Pyxis devices.” And then there are mentions of Argo in such sentences as “You can invite other Argo members that you meet to be your friends wirelessly.” Now we could make assumptions off of this information, but we’d rather just leave the assumptions to you.

Read [FCC]