Dell Quietly Leaves MP3 Market

An AD-Esque Sitcom writes "Dell has quietly retired from the portable player market. The Dell DJ Ditty — whose website is nothing more than an error now — was absent from Dell's catalogue, and the company was not offering any follow-up products, instead preferring to stick with PCs, printers, and not killing people in fiery laptop-related explosions. Dell will still be a third-party reseller of other MP3 players like the Creative Zen, but has left the Windows-based player market to the four big players — SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, and Creative."

Comments

A Lesson for Late Comers?

[ackthpt]

Back in the day there was a phrase going around, which seemed to have great merit: Stick to your core competency. While not always good advice, for there were a few companies who diversified and prospered, it was often easy to find examples of where companies had utterly done themselves in by getting into product lines and services where they were out of their depth or the product/service really wasn't ever going to produce the return hoped for (during hard times these units are often the first closed because the accountants can readliy point them out as hemorraging cash.) Good for Dell, get out and put your mind on sorting out your battery woes and making better PC's (the past years models are a far cry from the quality of early Dell units.)

Microsoft, still willing to bet billions you have an iPod killer and wish to enter the digital music player market? of course, you love the challenge and it encourages those mean old euro dogs to request Windows with the media junk bundled the EU is currently spanking you for.

Re:A Lesson for Late Comers?

[FoxconnGuy]

Apple has sticked to its core competency: Design fantastic products and marketing them. Though not always work, but for a consumer electronic product, Apple has good chance to win the fancy high-end ones. Especially with new business model been built. Apple joined the player market with iTunes supporting its iPod products. While back then if you tell someone to sell MP3 in this way, he/she mostly would thought you're out of your mind: RIAA will not allow that! Dell is good at: cost down and stream line the manufacturing all the way to service. With a PC or laptop, the price has been the critical factor you consider when you buy one (for most of us). That's one of the domains their core competency has effect on. I think designing fancy new stuff and dealing with the media industry shall not be their expertise (although they are supposed to be good at talking over phone.) You know what? I think Steve Jobs will not be Steve Jobs in Dell. Another example is dual version PC from Apple. Apple is selling their PC MAC in a new way. And by the time people found a dual-boot PC can work, you'll see *maybe* Dell selling PC that can dual-booting Linux and Windows with a very good price .

Re:A Lesson for Late Comers?

[tkdog]

Except I think Apple would take the view that they did stick to their core competency - making hardware and software blend into a useful appliance. The iPod has less of a range of functions than the things they typically make (Macs) but I think they see it as a "post-PC" gadget. A device that fits in your hand (or pocket) and allows you to do stuff - listen to music, watch video, carry files, some light PDA stuff so far. But there is a potential for them to build from what they have. The idea that all Apple is interested in is personal computers I don't think is valid. They were limited to that by a combination of available technology, money issues and inertia but I wouldn't be surprised if they released additional non-Mac "appliances", and considered them to be core products.

Snakes on an MP3 Player

[Kelson]

I guess Dell couldn't make use of all that Snakes on a Plane tie-in publicity, huh?

What, you didn't notice it? Small wonder, considering the character listening to the Dell MP3 player was known as iPod Girl until the last minute.

Explosions!

[MarkByers]

"and not killing people in fiery laptop-related explosions."

Nothing like a bit of flamebait to start some lively discussions!

Do we really need these sorts of comments in the summaries?

They entered even more quietly.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I'd never even HEARD of the "DJ Ditty" until this morning's radio news mentioned that Dell had dropped it.

With PR like that - versus Apple's dancing silhouettes - it's no surprise it never sold.

not for me

[cptgrudge]

...but has left the Windows-based player market to the four big players -- SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, and Creative.

iriver for life

Unless the next model I want to buy sucks, of course.

Zero margin product

[NineNine]

Except for Apple, which uses it's excellent marketing to convince people that they need to wait in lines for hours to pay waaaay too much for their particular brand name, I can't believe that portable MP3 players are going to be cash cows for much longer. They're cheap, basic, simple electronic commodities at this point. Upload MP3's to them, press play, you have music. No big deal. Hell, Verisign just sent me a free one for downloading a 2 page white paper!

The excitement is already dying down.

Re:Zero margin product

[Mikey-San]

They're cheap, basic, simple electronic commodities at this point.

And this mindset, ladies and gentlemen, is why no one has been able to beat the iPod.

Dell is cutting its losses, perhaps

[Parallax Blue]

In the wake of their battery recall and complaints about bad tech support (no surprise there) they are likely cutting their losses and allocating the capital spent on this player to other areas such as better advertising, and (hopefully) better tech support. A smart move on their part as it's too late to make a significant impact on this market now IMHO.

As for going quietly/gently, that is probably the right way to do it as share holders are scrutinizing their Dell stock and wondering whether or not they should be selling it. News that Dell has dropped their MP3 player, while certainly not a tragedy, may indicate either a weakness or a willingness to cut loose products that just aren't taking off. In effect they're playing it safe.

Haha

[TimmyDee]

Farewell Dell! One market you can't take over by undercutting on price!

Don't let the door hit you on the ass!

P.S. I know I may be modded troll for this one, but its about time this happened. Maybe all of those "analysts" will stop spewing about "iPod-killers" whenever someone comes out with a cheaper mp3 player. They may be driven by price alone, but consumers aren't always (as we have seen here).

windows

[Anonymous Coward]

left the Windows-based player market to the four big players -- SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, and Creative."

iPod works with Windows as well.

What happened to Apple?

[Blastrogath]

"...left the Windows-based player market to the four big players -- SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, and Creative."

What happened to Apple? My iPod certainly works with Windows.

Huh-what?

[rjoseph]

"...has left the Windows-based player market to the four big players -- SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, and Creative."

So, let's do some math here. Apple currently has, according to the most recent reports, about a 75% market share in the portable music player market. If Apple has sold 50+ million iPods to date, that would give us a rough estimate of about 67 million portable music players sold, in total, from all companies who produce said products. 50M iPods, 17M "others."

Last quarter, Apple sold a little over 1M Mac computers, while it sold over 8M iPods. This is not a new trend, either: there are far less Mac owners than there are iPod owners in the world.

So, you're really trying to convince us that out of the 50M iPods that have been sold, there are more people who bought one of the 17M other players that use Windows than there are iPod users who use Windows?!

Did everyone already forget how a big a boon iTunes for Windows was for both Apple and iPod sales?

There will be an iPod killer

[CubicleView]

Companies that don't ever diversify don't always do well either. Dell's foray into the MP3 market turned out to be ill conceived, but as the great Homer put it "No matter how good you are at something, there's always about a million people better than you." Dell were on the bottom and gave up (probably a wise decision) but the Apple iPod is just one of an eventual million other better products. I see no reason why any company with enough money and ingenuity can't beat the iPod into second place, it's just a matter of time.

Re:There will be an iPod killer

[peektwice]

There will be an iPod killer

And monkeys might fly out my butt...hey...what the fuck...

Seriously though...all the supposed iPod killers thus far have been pitiful imitators.
The real iPod killer is likely to be either

A. something else from Apple, who spends a TON of money on interface design from an artistic and human approach, or

B. something entirely different, that is not just a media player. This is why you find iTunes on phones. Apple realizes that this or potentially the PDA market can displace them from their throne, and they are ahead of the curve.

Re:There will be an iPod killer

[Anonymous Coward]

You based that on the assumption that Apple is doing nothing but wait for someone to take over. There is a huge R&D going on behind the screen. Just look at the patents Apple get. For all we know, they already have the next generation iPod almost ready for manufacturing. Not only the "iPod killer" compete with the iPod on the market, but it must kill this hidden target. Not an easy thing to do if you don't know what you must kill. Furthermore, time is what you don't have. The longer it takes to kill iPod, the bigger iPod userbase out there to overtake. The estimate now is 50 millions and in a couple years, it can be 100 millions. If it takes a couple years to come up with a true iPod killer, Apple still won't die right away. 3rd party vendors won't simply dismiss the 100 million userbase. That gives Apple time to design an iPod-killer killer. And your player is not compatible with the biggest paid music download service.

So far, there is one iPod killer. The company is called Apple. Its product, iPod nano, killed iPod mini at its height of popularity.

Re:There will be an iPod killer

[JonLatane]

Undoubtedly someone will eventually beat out the iPod, or other devices will become small and powerful enough to toss it into that chasm called obsolesence. However, as it stands today there's pretty much no way for the iPod to lose out, even with a consumer base that is more open to change than ever before. The word "iPod" is to MP3 players as JIF is to peanut butter, Windex is to window cleaner, and Lysol is to disinfectants. I could name at least 10 people off the top of my head, more if I sat and thought for a while, who can tell you all about how awesome iPods are but would just look at you and scratch their head if you said the word "MP3 Player." The only way iPod can fail is if it just utterly fails to keep up with the competition, has some kind of severe flaw that hurts users in some way, or (as I said before) becomes obsolete.

Shocked, shocked I say!

[saboola]

..because I thought they left the mp3 market like two years ago

Simple Lesson Learned

[twitter]

Windoze Media is a loser. Hell, they gave those things and the music away and people did not use them. A friend of mine got one from his apartment complex as a spiff for not moving. The DRM'd music the RIAA tried to push on campuses was a flop even when they gave it away. LSU never got suckered with that one so my buddy never bothered. He used WMP, as much as it sucks, to load it up and enjoyed it the player. Would he have spent $200 for it? Never. When he gets a new computer and WMP no longer works with his little device, the device is going in the trash. Music is about fun. Cool is easy. DRM is not fun and little devices that don't work everywhere are not easy. If Michael Dell can't push it, no one can.

As someone else pointed out, easy is when the device shows up as a mass storage device and plays whatever format you have without transcoding.

Re:Simple Lesson Learned

[Glendale2x]

iPod/iTunes has a lot of DRM? Have you ever used iTunes with an iPod? It's crazy simple and transparent. Remember, Apple *had* to include some kind of DRM to get the distribution rights they did; the record companies demanded it. Even then, it's very light DRM compared to other stuff out there. Easy to strip if you really wanted to. Burn it to CD if you like. As far as DRM goes, it's pretty damn lightweight. Don't like DRM? Rip CD's and just copy the files to the iPod. It's possible Apple gets away with this light DRM because it's tied to a single player, the iPod with iTunes.

If you had to use approved encrypted headphones to hear the music, like they want with HDTV, then I'd agree with you. Apple has to include DRM, so they do, but it's not hardcore DRM.

Re:Simple Lesson Learned

[toddestan]

On the other hand, Apple uses it's DRM as a tool to keep third parties from selling songs to iPod users, as well as keeping people from loading up songs bought on iTunes to something other than an iPod. That's not transparent in my eyes - actually it's pretty restrictive, despite some of the hoops you can jump through to make it "just work". I'm not a fan of Windows media either, but atleast you get a choice of both music stores and players if you go that route.

the problem is stock holders

[SethJohnson]

I see no reason why any company with enough money and ingenuity can't beat the iPod into second place, it's just a matter of time.

The bedevelling problem is that public companies have these annoying stock holders who have little patience waiting for a product line to turn a profit. With Dell in particular, they've got razor-thin margins on EVERYTHING, and a bunch of stockholders screaming for profits to double year-after-year. Dell has far less time than a company like Microsoft where they've got huge margins on the OS and office suites, so they frequently win the 'cut off the air supply' waiting game, even when they don't have this 'ingenuity' thing you speak of.

Seth

Re:the problem is stock holders

[mpcooke3]

Yeah, plus Microsoft have cash reserves the size of a medium sized country and have a record of throwing it at new markets for years if neccessary.
Dell is not that kind of business.

Windows based?

[CODiNE]

left the Windows-based player market to the four big players -- SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, and Creative."

Strangely iTunes and iPods also work just fine on Windows. Was he attempted to say Windows-centric? Mac-ignoring perhaps? Or did he mean based on PlaysForSure? Microsoft Sponsored? Windows-only? Obviously they aren't all running Win CE.