The wait is over.

Microsoft officially premiered Microsoft Zune (more or less silently) few nights ago, months before the original schedule. Under the hood Zune doesn’t provide great surprises. The Microsoft Press Release confirmed already leaked knowledge, meaning Zune ships with WiFi, 30GB hard drive, built-in FM tuner, a 3-inch TFT LCD display, USB 2.0 and the basic music, pictures and video playback. Screen resolutions is a bit lame QVGA, whilst the codec supports h.264, MP3, AAC and WMA.

The real action is of course wireless Zune2Zune sharing. And it works pretty much like already known: you can share a full-length track with a friend, and they’ve got three times to listen to it over a three day period, after which they can flag the song for purchase on the Zune Marketplace. Also playlists and pictures can be shared with other Zune users; and the same applies also with “unprotected” homemade recordings.

So far Microsoft is not mentioning Live Anywhere functionality, but like with most early previews of devices, there will be future updates. And with Zulu these mean enhanced ways to take even better advantage of the wireless capabilities.

As for colours, Zune comes in black, brown and white. I think most will notice how familiar Zune looks like - at least Microsoft has been looking at Apple very closely…. Sadly, Microsoft still holds pricing and availability private information.