There is only one reason I wake up in the morning with a twinge of sadness upon opening my Macbook, and that is the realization that I am stuck with the most evil music player of them all.

iTunes.

Back in the glory days of owning a PC, I cherished Zune as a music player as well as a music subscription service. It was simple to use, and for me, quite inexpensive. Unlimited downloads plus the option to keep ten songs a month with or without the subscription seemed to be a steal at the very worst. Hell, the Zune pass even saved Alex Wilhelm from The Next Web when the much famed Mozy failed him.

Alas, while Alex and I like to think we’ve seen the light, the rest of the consumer world disagrees with us.

At the Digital Music Forum, Microsoft’s own Director of Music Relationship, Strategy and Business Development Christina Calio admitted to some of Zune’s faltering, all of which boil down to three main issues.

1. Price of the Zune Pass subscription relative to the price of other subscription services such as Xbox Live, Netflix, and Hulu Plus. With just those three you are racking up a twenty plus dollar bill a month.

2. Comfortability with the idea of not owning all the music being downloaded.

3. Lack of availability on popular devices (OS X anyone?)

By the sounds of it though, Microsoft and the Zune team are committed to making their music subscription service work, so all hope is not lost.

My suggestion for success?

Drop the price, open up the superiority of the Zune product to other devices, and educate consumers about the benefits of such a subscription service.

Long live Zune!

[Cross-posted at Winextra]