Microsoft in the Zune

After a post-holiday season lull, Microsoft(MSFT Quote) is ready to rally its Zune digital music player.

The software giant is readying a new marketing and advertising blitz and plans to launch the device in new colors to maintain sales before it makes a hopefully bigger splash with new features -- and possibly a flash-based player like Apple's(AAPL Quote) rival iPod before the end of the year.

"We have a second wave of marketing and advertising coming out next month," says Jason Reindorp, Microsoft's marketing director for Zune. "We had spiked over the holiday period but naturally tapered out." ...