It has always been easy to beat up on Microsoft's Zune, but when the company announced last week that sales of the media player plummeted 54 percent year-over-year during the holiday shopping season, the entire internet piled on. The Zune-bashing reached epic proportions, as pundit after pundit called for Microsoft to axe the entire Zune division.

Given its poor sales numbers, we can safely say that most of Zune's critics have never used the device, and even fewer of them have really spent any serious time with Zune's online music store. But we have used it, and, what's more, we like it. iTunes Music Store could learn a thing or two from Zune Marketplace, and if Microsoft does end up dropping Zune then the digital music ecosystem will be worse off for it.

We reviewed the original Zune in 2006, the Zune Flash in 2007, and the 3G Zune released last September, and in this review, we'll take a look at the software side of the Zune experience. By the end of the review, we hope you'll agree that there's more at stake in the survival of Zune than just another Microsoft vs. Apple platform war.

A unique approach

In undergoing its own major changes over the last couple of years, the Zune Marketplace has evolved away from the model exemplified by the market-dominating iTunes Store into a unique approach to both media software design and media consumption. As Microsoft has improved upon the Zune devices, the Marketplace has gained TV shows, a completely redesigned UI that looks and works nothing like its competition (or even Microsoft's other software), and new social features that do their part to shed some of the punchline taint from Microsoft's "the social" catchphrase.

Microsoft's recent addition of a "keep 10" component to its Zune Pass monthly subscription service ups the ante in the company's battle to give the iTunes Store some worthwhile competition. Where most subscription services have dried up, Microsoft managed to innovate in November of last year, allowing customers of its $14.99 per month all-you-can-eat option to keep 10 songs every month, regardless of whether their subscription is canceled.

But is the keep 10 deal a game-changer for subscription models and the Zune?

Little. Boxy. Different

One of the worst complaints about the original Zune is that the first version of Microsoft's software barely wanted to install. Microsoft has long since solved these issues and the Zune software install is now as painless as they come. The installer also prepares users for what is to come in the Zune software, as it is branded with the distinct UI that Microsoft uses throughout its software and store.

And distinct it is. We have asked this question before, but it bears repeating: Microsoft made this? From the wide layout that focuses on album art (beating Apple to the punch by nearly a year) to the subtle UI animations conservatively sprinkled throughout, the Zune software is neither a copy of iTunes nor a direct descendent of Windows Media Player. It is something altogether different, and while this review will focus on the Zune Marketplace, some exploration of Zune software fundamentals is warranted.

It was a little jarring to get used to at first, but the Zune software employs a very text-based, seemingly button-less UI set in a square, white creamy window. Naturally, Microsoft provides a variety of backgrounds for the Zune software window, so I used a variety of them across my screenshots. At the top of the window is a master navigation bar with words for "collection," "marketplace," and "social," all set in the disarmingly lowercase letters of the pleasant Zegoe font. The collection is the default area that Zune software presents on first run, and it immediately begins sniffing for existing media under various directories in the user folder, like Music, Pictures, Videos, and Public. These directories can be customized via settings to include or exclude any directories you like. This flexibility is a wonderful antithesis to the comparatively dumb file management features (or lack thereof) in iTunes.

Underneath this top-level navigation is another row of text-based buttons for music, videos, pictures, podcasts, and channels, again all set in lowercase Zegoe. A third level of media-specific navigation is set one line lower and justified to the right side of the Zune window. Since music is the default Zune media area, third-tier buttons to switch between artists, genres, albums, songs, and playlists offer different ways to visualize one's music. The default artists view presents a simple A-to-Z list of artists on the left, a reorderable list of album covers in the middle, and a master list of songs on the right. The genre view mixes things up by listing genres on the right and album covers in the middle get arranged by artist name, while the albums view trims down to two columns to give album covers more of the spotlight.

These third-tier controls also appear in the video section of the Zune collection in order to separate tv shows from music videos, movies, and "other" types of videos, but nowhere else. Pictures and podcasts get their own respective, static views that work well, and we'll get to channels in a minute.

Despite this unique UI Microsoft built for its exclusive Zune platform, the Zune software isn't without its drawbacks. Some are arguably nitpicky, while others glare a little brighter when considering the fact that the Zune software has hit its virtual stride at version 3.x. For example, the Zune software's bizarre keyboard shortcuts don't allow for using the space bar to pause and play content; you'll need to use CTRL-P for that. The UI for managing and syncing playlists also seems very obtuse, as there is no way to display one's collection and playlists alongside each other for quickly shuffling tracks into the latter.

But again, I want focus on the store, so let's go shopping.