Slashdot Mirror
Dell Announces New Music Player, Download Service
gotr00t writes "It appears that Dell Computer Corp. has announced that by the end of the year, they will have released their digital audio player, known in short as the 'Dell DJ.' Along with the player, there will also be a digital music download service. Looks like Dell is also joining Apple in the consumer products category."
so now can i get the Dude You're Gettin a Dell song from them for only $1? No way dude! I'm gettin a dell now!
In more serious news, Dell will need to have Apple's marketing savvy to have Apple's success, and I don't think they do.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
What we need is a music service that doesn't impose draconian so-called copy-protection measures on its audio files. We'll just have to wait and see.
apple has a history of being "sexy".
dell has a history of being "boxy".
somehow, i see their image working against them here.
I don't know how many times people have seen this, but if it's ANYTHING like other PC companies that have tried to copy apple, they're usually quite terrible (such as www.buymusic.com).
I highly doubt that this will have any effect, if any, on the iPod.
- Sherman
There's a picture of the new music player, together with the bundled speakers here. Very nice styling :) Looks like they've combined Apple's iPod with Apple's G5 PowerMac in design terms.
You know it was the interns that thought this idea up.
Apple's stockholders should be storming Infinite Loop right now with pitchforks and torches -- in excluding Windows users, they went out and squandered the sort of lead (time-to-market wise) that CEOs have wet dreams about. And do you think they sold any more Macs than they would have otherwise? I doubt it...
All in all, I think Dell is in a great position on this one *assuming* that Microsoft doesn't get away with another violation of antitrust law ("You must include a desktop link to our music software or we won't sell you any copies of Windows").
I wonder what Dell will become if they escape from being Just Another Wintel vendor...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Any details on how the music download service will work? Subscription with free downloads but strict DRM, subscription with paid downloads and no/light DRM, paid downloads with no subscription but strict DRM, paid downloads with no subscription and no/light DRM?
Pricing of the Dell Digital Jukebox? Less than $299? I hope so, considering how cheap it looks (compare cheap buttons and scroll wheel vs touch-sensitive buttons and wheel with no moving parts).
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
In the same way Microsoft decided they would try to be all things to all people, Dell appears to have its heart set on dominating all things electronic. An iPod wannabe, a flat-screen TV, and other home electronics? Microsoft once sold operating systems. Then came an office suite, servers, mice, games, ERP suites, and now a fabulous media center for the whole family.
I'll stick to my iPod...
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
Dell's going to try to cater to a business model rather than what the customers want, just like with their PCs.
If they (or iTunes, better yet) went and put stuff from Gainax, Toei, Viz, and many, many other anime companies, they'd make a bleeding _fortune_ thanks to all the otaku out there.
But if the service is anything like their computers... God help anyone who joins. I know from experience; I'm a technology administrator at a local primary school, and we're locked into Dell. >_
Even worse is that we're stuck paying three grand for their crappy Latitude D600s and that sweet new 17-inch Toshiba's five hundred less - three hundred, counting the upgrade to XP Pro.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Apple squandered an insane amount of positive free press and a killer lead by initially releasing a "Mac Only" service. They could have gotten such a big headstart that people would think "Apple = Music" the same way they think "eBay = Auctions" -- that sort of mindshare is absolute *gold*.
Anyhow, Apple has a history of being "sexy". Unfortunately, they also have a history of being "stupid", at least in regards to capitalizing on their innovative triumphs.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Intelligent reasons why I'd choose a Mac over another machine? I get more done. I don't know how to explain it, but I get so much more done on this than I ever did on my PCs. And you know, there's something to be said for asthetics. I hear people make fun of this reason all the time, but why shouldn't I want to look at something pretty if I am going to be looking at it for long periods of time? What's wrong with wanting to see something asthetically pleasing when I sit down at my computer?
Has anyone used a Dell PC lately? I've had to fix SO MANY fairly recent (ie shipped with Win XP) Dells that its not even funny. Now, admitadely, a MP3 player isn't as complicated as a space heater... *ahem* I mean, a Pentium 4 3GHz system... but, well, Dell seems to be almost entirley concerned with undercutting competitor's prices and offering slightly better #'s where it's the facts and figures that are a selling point (Basically, I figure that if you take an iPod, add 5GB of space and take $50 off their selling point, you've got what Dell wants to sell their device as). Of course, the catch is, it WON'T be an iPod, it won't have the same sex appeal, it won't have as nice of headphones, etc.
I've been under the impression, however, that Dell was still by enlarge a corporate/business PC manufacturer. I'm wondering what Dell is thinking, trying to do this... even their PDA's can be explained as trying to expand themselves into a 'one stop shop' for corporate computing, like some sort of HP or IBM, but a MP3 player? Weird. And I can't see how they'd expect to get Dell-like margins out of this.... which makes me think they've probably cut quite a few corners.... everywhere.
And my understanding from the Apple iTunes store was that the only way that Apple managed to pull it off was because of their goodstanding with the industry... being Apple and all. Were they a trailblazer making it easy for Dell, or is this just going to be a really inoperable service with none of the music I want?
I guess we'll see.
2) Apple's strategy has long been to survive through innovation. Just as 3M will always have copycats selling Post-It knockoffs, Apple will always be followed by the Dells of the world. Apple knows this; it's happened time after time in the past. But Apple's DNA revolves around being different. You can call it a marketing ploy, but it seems to be a part of the culture there. Dell has become successful because of its distribution model. Apple has become successful because of its continuous innovation. And just because Apple doesn't dominate the industry doesn't mean that it's not a successful company.
3) Dell is in a great position to copy Apple. But Apple has far more experience at this game, in part because of that lead time you were referring to. Apple also has connections to the music industry that Dell can't match. In the end, it comes down to which company can implement their Windows music service in a manner that entices customers. The labels have had online music sites for quite some time now, and it wasn't until the iTunes Music Store came along that suddenly the popular wisdom flipped 180 degrees and everyone started saying, "Duh! This is so easy. Why didn't someone do it before now?" Well, perhaps it wasn't done before because it wasn't really as easy as everyone now supposes.
4) I've been watching Apple get written off for the last two decades. Oddly, most of the reports of Apple's demise usually come right after they've created something new and innovative. The pundits always come out of the woodwork to declare that Apple is totally screwed now, because their competitors will surely copy them and eat their lunch. Damned if you innovate, damned if you don't.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Yeah, 'cause that's the secret of Dell's success.
(sigh) I can tell this is going to become a "Dell sux!" and "Dell is just copying Apple!" thread, but the truth is that Dell is moving in a fairly purposeful way to fill an enormous gaping hole that Apple left in the market when they didn't release iTunes for the PC right away. When Apple loses all of that potential for market share to Dell, you gotta just come clean and admit: "Apple screwed up again".
Dell has become an enormously wealthy company because they're good at taking other people's well-concieved-yet-poorly-implemented ideas and improving on them or making them easier to sell. This isn't a small deal -- hugely promising companies full of smart people have suffered from an inability to do this for ages (SGI, anyone)? From selling computers customized on the web to rebranding their own peripherals to packaging the right software, Dell's made one smart business decision after another.
Anyhow, here's the real spin here: Apple fucked up, and now they're going to pay.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I wonder if this means Apple will get a Windows version of iTunes out sooner. With this announcement, and Dell's already well established consumer base, Apple's hopes of trying to capture the PC market might be thwarted if they don't act fast...
Blake
Must everyone follow a successful Apple product with their own half-assed, 'me too' version of it? This is why Apple now attempts to patent or trademark everything they do, people!
This Dell thing (the "metooPod"?) looks similar enough to the iPod that maybe Apple should seriously kick around the idea of filing another 'trade dress' suit, the way they did to take care of the Future Power e-Power or the eMachines eOne-- I mean, since practically everything else Dell makes is dark in color, it seems mighty suspicious to me that this is white. The screen size and placement looks almost identical. From the photo I've seen it also looks like the GUI is pretty similar. I see they've taken pains to move the battery gauge from the upper right corner (where the iPod has it) to the upper left corner-- reminds me of the difference between the Apple menu and Start menu.
At least the iPod has enough mindshare amongst the target market that no amount of B.S. marketing from Dell will make people think they did it first (I still remember Michael Dell's bullshit claim that Dell was the first company to build wireless networking into their laptops). The only way Dell will move very many of these things is by irrevocably bundling them "free" with their systems. I predict we'll start seeing a lot of them on eBay after a while, and then the product will die a quiet, relatively quick death like Dell's iMac wanna-be, the WebPC.
~Philly
If both Dell and Microsoft are going to come up with their own "let's rip off Apple" music service, that means the two of them will be competing with each other. Oddly enough, Microsoft doesn't seem to like it when customers compete with them. And let's face it, a Dell/Microsoft split rift would be an annoyance for Microsoft, but a DISASTER for Dell.
If I weren't so convinced that both of them were going to release DRM-crippled, dead-on-arrival, inelegent and unwieldy abortions in trying to ripoff iTunes, I'd say this has the potential to be interesting. As it is, I suspect both services will be dead (and iTunes still doing very well indeed) by mid-2005 or so...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Really? The general assumption, even among those who are defending Dell here, appears to be that Dell is reacting to Apple in this case. Apple announced the iTunes Music Store more than four months ago, and have been working on the PC version of iTunes at least since then. They thought they could get it ready by the end of the year when they announced it, which means Apple thinks it takes at least six months.
Since there are less then three months left (you can't finish it right on December 25 to make it to this Christmas shopping season), the Dell PC-side client likely has to be developed in more haste, and yet has to be deliberately somewhat different from iTunes. Dell is not known to have a proven server infrastructure for a music store ready. Dell is not known to have micropayments worked out with credit card companies. Dell hasn't announced the price, size of catalog (or even if any major labels have signed on!), battery life or capacity of the device, and you already think Apple is going to pay?
Let me ask you another question: how will the Dell device connect to the PC? If they use USB1, then it'll be significantly slower than the iPod, and "full sync" will be a real pain. If they use USB2 or Firewire, then they're limiting themselves to a much smaller set of PC customers with recent PCs (like Apple, except Apple has Mac users).
So unless you're a Dell insider and know all these details, how can you possibly pick a winner right now?
I don't need to look at your referenced chart. I'm sure that Exxon has some stratospheric numbers, like a lot of oil companies.
What I'm curious about is your idea of 'success'. The idea of 'success' in Dell's culture as well, for that matter.
I hear Michael Dell talk in interviews about the state of the industry and his predictions. What immediately strikes me is the fact that his comments are 100% economic. That is to say, all he talks about is where the money is going, essentially. He never talks about actually doing something good. You know, advancing the state of things? Never. Just money.
So whether you think Apple is successful or not entirely depends on your worldview of success. I would submit that Apple is one of the most successful companies of all time.
I base this not entirely on financial performance, but rather, a combination of fiscal prowess and the quality and impact of the things Apple has brought into the world. At the end of the day, what really matters in this kind of industry is the work you've done, right?
I mean, if you really go back to the list, the list of things they've introduced to the mainstream is just staggering. The first mainstream PC. First mainstream mouse. Laser printer. Desktop GUI. Multimedia, in large part. It goes on. Of course Apple is also the crazy artist of the industry. They produce brilliant things but can be absolutely taciturn and overly sensitive and stubborn and... well you get the point. Apple is to Peter Gabriel what Michael Dell is to Garth Brooks. Or something like that.
Dell doesn't do any meaningful work. They just box 'em up and ship 'em out. That's fine, there's a need for that, and its in a million corporate office farms. For good consumer stuff you can do much better. And when you ask Michael Dell about innovation he thinks that means branching out into areas others have been successful in already. He would, I suspect, look at you blankly if you suggested that he was copying Apple; he'd say it was just 'industry trade winds' he was following.
Success is not just how much money you make - you can't measure it that way. It's a quality thing.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Actually, I believe it was a combination of the two. I saw a few recording industry quotes where they made it fairly clear that the only reason they gave Apple the go-ahead to sell their music online was because the limited market-share of Apple Mac users made a perfect trial audience. If something went horribly wrong and the public hated it, they could save face by knowing 95% of the public never used the service to begin with. It could easily be brushed aside as a failure only because PC/Windows users didn't get a chance to be a part of the program.
Once it was proven to work (and sell well), Apple was free to go ahead with developing a PC version of the music store without record company backlash.