New Zune in June; Zunephone Rumors Abound.

Something's been brewing in Microsoft for a while now. Rumors of an HD Zune have been flying rampant lately, fanned by Microsoft's increased advertising of the Zune. Most of those new ads have directly attacked the iPod and iTunes, which are definitely Microsoft's main competitors in the media player industry.

Today we got our first concrete information about a possible release date for the Zune HD (or whatever it is Microsoft's been working on). A Twitter post from a member of the Microsoft Office 2010 team states that, "June 2009 will be an important month for Zune lovers."

Update: Apparently the Twitter account does not belong to Microsoft. More details on NeoWin.

That got people stirred up. Other Twitterers flooded the poor developer with all sorts of questions, prompting him to give a very strange response.

"New product launch, that's all I'm allowed to say. Hold off from buying an iPhone/Pre. :)"

Virtually every tech site on the Internet is speculating about what this means. In the past, Microsoft's been adamant about not getting involved with making cell phones, but what other reason could there be for this tweet? The Zune HD will definitely be a big product launch, but a simple media player isn't going to hurt Apple or Palm smartphone sales.

Of course, this could just be a smokescreen from Microsoft designed to worry their competitors and shake things up a little. Or it could have been an employee speaking out of turn. Whatever the truth is, we'll know in June.

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