It's November 13, 2007 (5:20 am here in Seattle) and the Zune Software, Zune Social, Zune Marketplace and - most importantly to many of you - the Zune firmware update is now live. If you haven't yet, go to Zune.net and download it! Once you're on the Zune Social, drop me a line! (my card - http://social.zune.net/member/Cesarisok )

On Monday, we’re taking down Zune Marketplace from 6:00pm PST for a few hours while we deploy the final code (woot!). During that time, you won’t be able to browse, purchase music, download music from ZMP, or access your account. Then on Tuesday, November 13, the new software, store, Zune Social, and firmware update will go live.

<heads up, folks, this is a long post. To make this easier to read, I’m going to hold until a later post to link to all the images> Today, Bill Gates, J Allard, and some other folks from the Zune team met with some members of the media to talk about this Holiday’s update to the Zune line. I’m going to keep the PR-ish stuff out of it (for that you can go to the press releases), and just sum up with the facts and the tech specs. Ready? okletsgo: Zune Players : This November, we’re launching new...

< Update 10:17 AM PT > - As of 10:00 am today (March 28), the update is out. Ok, dear blog reader: Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 28, you’ll be able to download firmware update 1.3. Mea culpa on communicating a non-final date in my earlier post (which ended up being wrong). Just to recap, here’s what’s in the update: We’re fixing the skipping problem that some users were experiencing – that is, content acquired from Zune Marketplace will no longer skip when played on the device. Improved device...