Yahoo! Music is expected to announce a new music-video player, Video 3.0, today, after launching the beta version yesterday.

The new video player is compatible with Mac and Firefox and will have more features as well as higher quality video playing. Video Player 3.0 will give users the flexible capability of of searching for videos and creating playlists while watching clips. This would allow for consecutive video watching.

While Apple Computer Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) charges $1.99 for music videos through its iTunes store, Yahoo! Inc.'s (NASDAQ:YHOO) service is free.

This service must have a minimal impact on Yahoo! overall revenues. The launched upgraded service would probably not help the monetization problems Yahoo! is facing. However, the purpose of this service, like many others, is to attract and retain a user base. And that counts for something too.

One of the things that investors often shy away from is a company that has large, well-financed competitors. Another is a company that has an extraordinarily high share in a market where competition is heating up.

Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is in both categories.

The company's run on the back of the iPod and iTunes has certainly been fantastic. The stock has gone from $50 in July to almost $89 recently. Rumors that the company will come out with an iPhone have also fueled some of the recent gain. Going back even further, Apple's stock was under $7 (!) in April 2003.

Apple bulls like to point out that the iPod has by far the largest share in the portable media player market and that consumers will not want to shift their music play lists to another platform. Well said and well reasoned. However, the press has begun to point out that Time Warner, Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX) NetScape, Corel Corp.'s (NASDAQ:CREL) WordPerfect, and Novell, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:NOVL) NetWare had similar share advantages.

At the same time, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) has vowed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on its competing Zune player. Whether the software giant will be successful is open to question, but defending its turf will certainly cost Apple something.

What's in a name? Sometimes everything when it comes to marketing a new product. Companies spend substantial amounts of money on the naming of products and advertising campaigns to promote them. Microsoft probably spent millions.

Well Apple (AAPL) has a solid product in the iPod and iTune brands, that's for sure. But its market position is made even more secure because, starting a few laps behind, the "Zune" from Microsoft (MSFT) seems like it will go nowhere fast.

There is no indication that the Zune will bring with it any fresh ideas or features. It seems to be another, "We have to have a piece of that market somehow product." See Underwhelming Zune in Forbes.

Does this Zune work for you? Anybody got a better idea? Anybody think this has the smallest chance of competing with the iPod? Maybe they throw billions of dollars at the project and create another money losing X-BOX? Actually X-BOX works as a brand name. MP3 is a cooler name than Zune. I could write a "Rap-tune", would I write a Rap-Zune?

iTunes works for me... but iZunes?, Zuner?, Zunettes?, Zune Video?, MicroZune? (that might work) Oh well, not my gig. They must have done some advance market research -- did they call you? Maybe a Microsoft executive somewhere has a kid named Zune?

I'm sure there are people who like the name, and if the product was remarkable the name would grow on me, but there is no reason to believe this is going to happen here.

A "rose by any other name" - NOT

Disclosure: I do not own Apple of Microsoft stock but my kids have iPods.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for Design and Research of an Architecture & Planning firm.