Forget for a moment that the Zune 80, the 2nd gen Zune that’s hardly old, hasn’t launched in Canada yet.  Why?  Because they’re already talking about the Zune 3, and it’s expected to have a simultaneous launch in Europe!  The HT Lounge reports the following:

As we look forward to the 2009 holiday season (yes, we’re looking that far ahead), more news surrounding the third-generation Zune is starting to rise to the surface.

Francois Ruault of Microsoft France is saying that the Zune 3 will be launching in Europe at the same time that it is being released for North America. This should help Microsoft better establish its portable media player in international markets.

No word on what the specs on the Zune 3 will be.  I really think that the improvements need to go into the software more than the Zune device itself, but a larger hard drive wouldn’t be a bad thing.  120 GB anyone?