So like the rest of us, I guess you’ve been wondering what’s up Microsoft’s rather large sleeves for Zune in 2009, and it’s been hard to tell so far with Microsoft being so secretive. Thankfully however, a very observant tech blogger seems to have unearthed some tasty treats for us which should give us a little glimpse…

Ever heard of MusiWave? Its some French based mobile music and entertainment services provider that Microsoft struck an agreement to acquire last year. Great. But what’s really interesting is what they’re doing for Microsoft now.

Look at their logo… nice familiar colour scheme wouldn’t you say? And say… look at the design at the bottom of their website… again, familiar no? Though that’s not really enough to go on to say they’re working on Zune… not until you read this rather obvious job listing:

"Zune Services is building an entertainment store for a wide range of Zune clients or ‘tuners,’…Today these tuners include the Windows PC client, the Zune web site and the Zune device; in the future there will be more. Each of these tuners access a set of rich web services implemented by Zune and soon by Musiwave as well."

Meanwhile a Dec. 2 posting for a software development job reads:

"The Zune organization is making a strategic change from a 3rd party content provider to in-house… We need to rebuild, re-architect, and revitalize a content ingestion pipeline that powers the entire Zune business. And we have a very short time to do it."

While a further listing goes onto state:

"As Musiwave powers Zune Marketplace, we’ll need to ‘ingest’ data from multiple sources and process it in a way that’s optimal for Zune to show to the users. We’ll also continue to look at new types of data we can load into our system and expose to make music in Zune an ever richer experience."

So what’s this all pointing too? Well it seems obvious that Microsoft are trying to reinvent the underlying Zune Architecture for a rather large expansion, and by the looks of it (“we have a very short time”) its going to happen late 2009, though to what end its not really clear. New Client software’s beyond the PC & Devices likely only leaves room for the obvious: Mobile Software! (Which in itself is made more likely from the addition of Musiwave implementation).

And guess what? Also seems there’s something called a Zune Xbox in works!

Blogger Matt Rosoff … found another Zune listing that refers to a "Zune Xbox" — evidence that the company will connect it digital music initiative and video-game console in new ways.

"The Zune Design team seeks a visual designer who is passionate about software design, software innovation and consumer entertainment experiences," reads the Oct. 21 posting for a user experience designer. "We are looking for a strong, collaborative designer to work closely with the creative directors to propose innovative designs and content solutions for the Zune Device UI, Zune Xbox and Zune PC Application."

Okay, so Zune Xbox sounds like something an uneducated person would say, but if it was real, what exactly would it be? Its almost certainly not a new hardware device, so its likely to assume its one of these new so called “tuners” mentioned above. I guess if I were to take a stab in the dark I’d like to see it being Full HD version of the Zune Interface on your TV (A greatly upscaled TV-Out option per-se), and lets be honest hear, how awesome would that be?!

Paul Thurrott from WinSupersite has a similar, and intriguing look on it:

“So. What’s a “Zune Xbox.” Here’s my guess: All you have to do is look at the paltry music, photos, and movie playback experiences that still exist for the Xbox 360 in the new UI (New Xbox Experience) to quickly realize they’re in drastic need of updating. Putting the Zune UI on the Xbox 360 as the UI for digital media (alongside Media Center, I guess) makes perfect sense. In fact, when you consider that virtually the entire Xbox 360 dashboard was replaced as part of the NXE—except for the digital media playback bits—it’s pretty obvious.”

[source: WinSuperSite]