It’s obvious enough that the Apple iPod is dominating the portable music player market, holding something like a 75% market share. That’s absolutely incredible and it doesn’t look like they’re slowing down any time soon. Heck, I even have an iPod nano myself. You really have to applaud the work of Steve Jobs and the rest of the team at Cupertino for pulling Apple into the limelight like this.

Even when a big dog like Sony — with their legendary Walkman branding — tried to usurp Apple in the MP3 player market, they failed pretty badly. Microsoft is one of the latest companies to enter the portable media player arena and while the Microsoft Zune has been available in the United States for over a year, it’s only now that the Zune is making its way to Canada.

The difference between the Microsoft Zune and other iPod competitors is that Microsoft has worked hard on podcast integration. Podcasts are hugely popular and very few other MP3 players have this level of integration. Loading up a Zune with podcasts through the Zune Marketplace software is just as easy as doing the same through iTunes.

The video above was taken at the Opus Hotel some time back when Microsoft Canada invited Stephen Fung and I to their luxurious suite. For more information about the Canadian launch of the Microsoft Zune, check out my article on FutureLooks. A review of the Zune 80GB will be posted there shortly as well.

UPDATE: As Stephen mentions below, here is the Zune 80GB review on FutureLooks.