RSSDell may try to compete with Apple's iPod once again
By Tim Conneally | Published July 30, 2008, 1:17 PM
Talk of Dell's movements in handheld technology have been at a high recently, with rumors of a smartphone from the company and now of a new digital music player to compete with Apple's iPod.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Dell has been testing a new digital music player that could be released as early as September. Details on the device are scant other than that it will have Wi-Fi, and likely capitalize on Dell's dormant Zing property that it acquired last year.
Zing's technology was licensed to SanDisk for use in its Sansa Connect Wi-Fi media player, enabling realtime streaming of audio content from Yahoo's now-defunct music service. Following its acquisition of Zing, Dell applied for the trademark of "Zingspot", which was described in the filing as "an online consumer portal for digital entertainment content acquisition and distribution."
Zing will ostensibly play a major role in Dell's new portable, as the company intends for it to be more than just a player, but also software platform that allows music to be shared from PCs and other devices.
Unnamed Dell executives were cited by the Wall Street Journal as saying the new device will likely be under $100, similar to the company's last attempt at a personal media player, the DJ Ditty. That device, despite its ridiculous and memorable ad campaign (below), failed to gain traction in the crowded media player market, from which Dell withdrew in 2006.
Anyone heard of Sansa? There are five times as many of these players as there are iPods in consumers hands. They sound better too.
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Face it, in the low-fi world of convenience, the personal music player...."iPod" market - is essentially saturated.
Even Apple is having to deal with the leveling of sales after the initial growth period.
Even as they, unlike others, have been able to drive the market by the dominance and desirability of their design/model changes.
Entering the market now without a truly revolutionary device will accomplish little unless it can be done with almost NO development costs needing to be recouped.
And then you would be playing for pennies on the dollar of that market space.
It would take a rare product indeed, and one hell of a leveraged marketing campaign to even make a dent.
Too little, too late.
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IMO standalone personal music players are quickly becoming a thing of the past. These built into cell phones is where this market is headed. You will notice that most of the phones today are building in a music playback function. One less device you haft to carry around.
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Quite true. I have my portable music player archived and use my Blackberry Curve for that purpose. I have to carry only one device for all my needs. :)
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iDontcare
IMO almost all the music players suck. I like the SanDisk players since they don't really do any shady proprietary crap that I've seen.
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"That device, despite its ridiculous and memorable ad campaign..."
Let's not forget the name in general. DJ Ditty? I'd be embarassed to ask for one of those.
Zing isn't much better at all. And it's too close to Zune.
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plays for sure + Zing! = Comedy Gold
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