In a move to oust the current czar in portable digital music, the Apple iPod that is no less than the apple of a music lover’s eye today, computer giant Dell Inc. is all set to launch its first-ever portable flash-based music player in competition to the iPod.
To be called the DJ Ditty, Dell’s music player will herald the company’s attempt to penetrate into the mobile entertainment market. Other moves by Dell include three fresh professional hand-held computers equipped with extra entertainment software. Besides, a couple of new photo printers are also in the offing in an effort to make further advancements in printing.
Vice president of electronics and accessories at Dell, Michael Farello, informed that DJ Ditty would carry a price tag of $99 with a memory of 512 MB that would be sufficient to record 220 songs.
While Dell's Ditty functions very much like the iPod Shuffle, it will sport a screen like the new iPod Nano. Also, Dell will be presenting the FM tuner on the DJ Ditty, which iPod does not offer. Ditty will also permit users to rent songs through subscription to certain music services for a monthly sum. Even though the iPod Shuffle costs the same with 512 megabytes of memory, its iTunes files are big and occupy too much space to allow storage of only 120 songs.
Founder of Endpoint Technology Associates Inc., Roger Kay, said that even though Dell might create a stir in the portable music market with its Ditty, it will not be able to shove iPod away from the top position.
In his words, “What Apple's producing with iPod is the total experience with hardware, software and services. That's the piece none of the other purveyors have figured out: how to make the thing a great experience from soup to nuts.”
Posted
on : Wed, 21 Sep 2005 16:05 GMT | Business News
By : Mark Richardson
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