The big-screen video Gigabeat (as opposed to the lower end gigabeats) runs microsoft software - a later iteration of the media center portable stuff that was on the old Creative/Samsung/etc PMP devices from a couple of years back (even the UI is quite similar). It's windows CE with a big UI slapped on top of it. It's microsoft through and through - manufacturers get very little customisation wiggle room as I understand it.
See:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/061120/20061120005084.html?.v=1Mobile devices driven by i.MX applications processors available today include:
(...)
* Toshiba gigabeat® S Series (i.MX31L) - a new line of digital video and audio players powered by Microsoft Windows Portable Media Center
The Zune software is presumably the next gen of this same software, but MS are keeping it to themselves. I think it is actually MS playsforsure, but with a different set of keys - no sense in reinventing the wheel here.
As for hardware, this is how I think it's likely to have happened: Toshiba designed the gigabeat - possibly with some very close reference to the microsoft recommended hardware platforms for their PMP software (microsoft have some presentations on this online ISTR if you fancy a google). I could believe that the Zune started out with the gigabeat schematic, and then someone (MS, Toshiba, or maybe a contractor) added the Zune-specifics like wifi. Toshiba, or possibly a contract manufacturer, then build the boxes.
Apple don't own factories, much the same as most companies that you might call "hardware manufacturers". That doesn't mean they don't design every last detail, though.
Hugo
(speaking his own opinions here, obviously)
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