Microsoft s Latest Save-The-Zune Plan: Astrology

Microsoft (MSFT) may have frozen hiring in its Xbox and Zune divisions, but that didn't keep the company from throwing a swank party -- complete with 90's band "The Presidents of the United States of America" (remember?) on hand to perform -- on New Ramalan Bintang Zodiak Shio York's West Side last night to promote the two devices ahead of the holiday season. So what's the plan to hype the Zune against Apple's (AAPL) latest iPods? Astrology! Over the next two weeks Microsoft will be debuting a series of zodiac-themed Zunes on the belief that what the portable music market really wants is devices engraved with "Aries" and "Pisces" logos. Microsoft even had (Macbook-using!) fortune-tellers on hand to calculate guests' star charts with astrology software. We got a sneak peek at Microsoft's new marketing strategy:   Best moment of the night: Presidents of the United States of America lead singer Chris Ballew took to the Xbox to sing his own band's song, "Lump," on Rockband 2. The singer got a score of 93%. "That's a lot of better than I usually do live," Ballew told SAI. "Up on stage, usually I only hit 85% of my notes." See also: Zune Brings You More Features You Didn't Know You Wanted: New Designs, Free Wifi At McDonalds Zune Gets New Features That Won't Help Sell Zunes Microsoft's Zune Adds NBC Shows, Other Features; Still Unable To Combat Fierce Apathy Get the latest Microsoft stock price here.