Big boys, don’t cry! So, instead of crying that Zune 80 missed Black Friday, Microsoft prepares for the future. The company announced that a significant number of its last-generation music players would hit the stores in maximum 10 days.

When Microsoft released the new Zune 80 player on November 13, it seemed that Apple’s popular iPod monopoly could eventually get to an end. Zune 80 started to sell very well and earlier this week the last-generation device became Amazon’s best-selling MP3 player.

But, while everybody was charmed by Zune 80, it seems that it was Microsoft that had never expected such a huge demand for its new 80 Gb portable music player. Instead of focusing on shipping more and more Zune 80s, Microsoft mistakenly decided to prioritize the manufacturing of two Flash Zune music players. Thus, after two weeks since its release, the 80 Gb hard drive-based Zune is sold out or in limited supply both online and in the retails stores around the United States.

Ironically enough, Microsoft did not forecast Zune’s success; while in the past the company made efforts to transform its Zune music players into so-called “iPod killers”, now it has to get through the demand.

With a hard drive capable of holding up to 20,000 music tracks, Zune 80 also features a large screen, wireless capabilities, FM radio and a music subscription service, and thus competes directly with Apple’s iPod classic. However, not having Zune 80 on shelves during the busiest shopping period of year won’t help Microsoft’s battle against the iPod.

But although Zune 80 missed the start of the race, the Christmas shopping season started only yesterday. Microsoft could still win the battle; it has just to hurry up!