Microsoft farewells Zune hardware

Microsoft has finally announced it will no longer be offering any more Zune hardware and will remove the Zune player from its website.

The move had already been announced, but the company is now pulling the device a little earlier than expected.

In a statement, Microsoft said that the device, which was released about five years ago to compete with the iPod, will be replaced by the Windows Phone ecosystem and existing Zune software.

“We recently announced that, going forward, Windows Phone will be the focus of our mobile music and video strategy, and that we will no longer be producing Zune players.”

“So what does this mean for our current Zune users? Absolutely nothing. Your device will continue to work with Zune services just as it does today.”