“Dell on Monday cut the price of its Dell Digital Jukebox music players in an attempt to put pressure on industry leader Apple Computer. The company cut the price on its 15-gigabyte Dell DJ to $199 from $249, and on its 20-gigabyte device to $279 from $299,” Rex Crum reports for CBS MarketWatch.
Reuters reports, “Apple has the largest part of the digital music player market, according to market research firm NPD Group, which tracks retail sales. The data does not include Dell because its products are sold only over the Internet. Apple was top ranked with 32 percent of the music players shipped in February. RCA was ranked second with 13 percent of the market. About $35.6 million worth of digital music players were sold in February.”
“One analyst said that Dell’s DJ has done well because of its price and battery life. ‘My understanding is that they’re selling pretty well they’ve taken a nice part of the market,’ said Avi Greengart, senior analyst with Jupiter Research. ‘This is not a fire sale,'” Reuters reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Desperation setting in already or a price war Apple must fight? Price seems to be Dell’s only weapon. Competing against Apple’s iPod/iTunes on innovation, quality and mindshare is out of Dell’s league.
Jackson:
Really, man, Apple would be incredibly stupid not to consider how to improve the design and function of the iPod. Personally, I cannot understand how increasing iPod run time to 20, or even 30 hours, continuous run time cannot be accomplished. Some Apple users don’t have the luxury of being connected to power 24/7.
I would pay well to have a device like the Sidewinder to recharge my Pod when I am far from the grid: http://www.sidewindercharger.com/
From: Steve Shen, DigiTimes.com�[Friday 2 April 2004]
“Dell is in talks with Taiwan-based companies, including Wistron and Compal Electronics about production of its Digital Jukebox (DJ), the Chinese-language newspaper Commercial Times reported today.
Based on its previous experience in manufacturing PDAs for Dell, Wistron is likely to land the first DJ orders, with volume shipments to start in June at a rate of 60,000 units each month, according to the report.
Dell is talking to Compal about a different DJ model, the paper said. If finalized, Compal is expected to start delivering the new model to Dell in September, it added.”
Unless Apple increases the size of the iPods they will not be able to get much more battery time. Dell DJ is larger and has room for a bigger battery. By the way, they get “up to 20 hours”. In real life it’s probably more like 16 hours. Do you really need 20 hours on one charge? HP and Apple said they would have the bluePod available in June. It’s not June yet.
pkradd:
Yup. I need 20 hours plus. 30 hours would be nice. When the nearest power line is more than 300 miles away (as the crow flies) the need for juice is appreciably real.
>When the nearest power line is more than 300 miles away
>(as the crow flies) the need for juice is appreciably real.
If you are that far from civilization, perhaps you might simply consider enjoying the experience of being unplugged!
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I’ve been a backpacker for decades, and even in my “you can’t play Zeppelin loud enough” youth always believed that when outdoors, if you needed to hear music and there wasn’t a wall-plug nearby, you should be making the music yourself or just enjoying the peace and quiet.
Much to my amazement, there are lots of people in the world who don’t agree with me!
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No one knows for sure just yet, but its been opined that the Apple/HP deal is for the current generation of iPods. Consider the following: Apple comes out with a 4th Generation iPod in the coming months (April 28th, perhaps, the one year anniversary of the iTMS, or maybe “June” as the terms of the deal seem to point to). The 4G iPods are sold at the current pricing scheme, $299, $399, & $499. HP, on the other hand, sells a rebranded THIRD GENERATION iPod, NOT the new ones, at a discount from the current pricing scheme. There will be customers who buy the latest product from Apple and then those that buy “last year’s” kit from HP. Either way, Apple gains revenue (from their own unit sales and from licensing) and market share. The hPods compete fairly well with the Dull DJs on price and make today’s announcement a null issue. Suck it, Mikey.
Microsoft just announced a $50 price drop for the XPod.
And there’s a strong rumour they will bundle it with Halo 2.
Nummer Cruncher: HP will start selling their ‘hPods’ in June.
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About the battery issue: Dell used to promote the fact that their batteries lasted 16 hours. Now, with NO CHANGE IN DESIGN, they are toting 20 hours.
Makes you wonder what’s really going on.
Newsreader:
Sometimes I want to hear nothing but the wind in the trees, sometimes I want to share a tune or two with buds in the woods. And, no, it aint the leafy buds either.
I’m with “duh” up above – I can’t imagine carrying anything larger than my 15Gb 3G iPod to listen to my music on the go. If Apple can work out how to improve battery life and maintain the same, if not smaller, form factor of the iPod mini while increasing song capacity, too, I’m right in the front of the line for a new one, but until then, I’ll muddle along with 6-8 hours of music between plugins – I don’t have to listen to the same tune anyway between charges, what with more than 2,600 songs loaded…
If you need a longer battery life and don’t mind it being a bit bulkier (like the DJ) There is always the Belkin Battery pack
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/70902/wo/sq3xD5aFsJy22u192sZbrFxn7fm/2.3.0.5.10.3.19.13.0
With the 12-15 Hours it provides added to the 8 hours of the iPod you get over 20 hours. Also you just need to bring an extra pack of standard batteries and you get 12-15 hours MORE.
I have one of these and it works great. I have found though that it is VERY rare that I actually need to use it.
Price is the only weapon that Dell has. Its products are unremarkable, but it has a great marketing dept (like Micro$oft),, so people think they are better than they actally are.
quote:
> ‘My understanding is that they’re selling pretty well they’ve taken a nice part of the market,’ said Avi Greengart, senior analyst with Jupiter Research.
It’s a typo, what he wanted to say was “they’ve taken a NICHE of the market”
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off the thread…
hate to support Micro$oft, but the XBox has better games than the PS2. Except for Gran Turismo.
When Dell has a firesale on whatever iPod wannabe they have at the time it will be like this.
“With 100 downloaded songs per month from the MS music rental store you can by the Dell Deep Janus music player for only 19.99. Hurry cause supplies are limited. Imagine 100 songs on a brand new Dell, and with Deep Janus technology, all those songs will play all at once, giving you all your choices all the time. So pick up that phone, operators are standing by, don’t let their accents confuse you, they are freely liberated Iraqis.”
Dell is just trying to sucker in the usual Dell Dumbasses. Most PC-idiots for that matter. These simpletons have a one-track mind. They think they’re getting a bargain, but they’re just getting inferior design, equipment, quality, and style. I wonder how many suckers bought into it?
Is Dell knocking 20% off because they are sold out and won’t be able to meet their international commitments until June? Or maybe they have managed to secure supply of the hard drives that nobody else can get? Or perhaps they have managed to crank up their legendary production machinery to reduce the price by that much?
Nah. They’ll probably end up giving them away for free under selected Coke bottle caps – as soon as they figure out how to make them fit. Or maybe Coke will have to redesign their bottles more in the shape of buckets.
I think Dell’s problem is with the naming of their player. They should have named it the iDJ.
All i can say is that apple needs to lower the iPod price, and it needs to match some of the Dell DJ’s better features such as battery life.
go ahead Sergio Lissone, you try and do it, just think about how much money you could lose!!
Well, it’s nice to know that i was right. Apple DID lower the iPod price, and their profits are streaming in.
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