“Yep, Virgin Electronics is dead. We’ve just gotten confirmation from their PR rep that the company failed to receive additional funding from parent Virgin Group and that they’re quietly discontinuing all of their product lines (mainly MP3 players and portable speakers),” Peter Rojas reports for Engadget. “…we’re guessing sales must have been way, way worse than they’d expected.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Let the domino tumbling begin. Note for Ralph in Sioux City, Iowa and Lou in Rochester, New York, “the rep made it clear that they will continue honor all warranties,” Rojas reports.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
French court rejects Virgin’s case, won’t force Apple to open up iTunes – November 10, 2004
Virgin unveils ‘iPod mini killer’ and openly chides Apple for not allowing iTunes support – October 12, 2004
Virgin Mega files complaint against Apple over FairPlay licensing – August 05, 2004
BusinessWeek: Virgin Digital ‘a digital-music challenger to be feared’ by Apple – March 09, 2004
Virgin Digital President predicts Apple iTunes Music Store demise – March 08, 2004
You can think whatever you want, but please don’t infer from the “take” that everyone in Sioux City is dumb enough to choose one of these over the real thing. That being said, it is pretty hard to spot many Apple products around here in “Gateway Country”.
Hasn’t Boeing just lost it’s head again? (CEO left after a sex scandal, he replaced the previous CEO who left in a bribery scandal)
edgeknight, I disagree with some of your comments. Virgin has long term businesses like planes and trains. Branson does look for market opportunities and he cuts his losses if they don’t work. Branson is the man (wasn’t he the only living person featured in the ‘Think Different’ campaign) but Virgin and Branson aren’t the same.
Branson fought the market, they tried to take his businesses off him, lucky he had a very rich daddy who helped him organise friends and finance to buy the shares back.
In my opinion he sells his brand name businesses too easily thus the Virgin brand is discredited. eg Virgin ISP isn’t any more, it’s NTL (NTHell). Selling the name seems to have been very profitable.
The Virgin brand did have cool, less so now, few people remember the original cool Virgin Records stores.
Glazer is next…
The Headline is both clever and appropriate.
Yes, it’s a bit viscerial and shocking but it is appropriate. When Virgin Electronics announced their mp3 player (I’m sure nacdailynews has that links oemwhere), they basically gave Apple a month to close up their mp3 shop – as if because they opened a record/CD store 15 years, that meant they knew what they were doing. Virgin was smug and arrogant and they pretty much got what they deserved.
At least Rio and Creative are trying – the are still missing the target but they are furiously trying – all Virgin did was wander into a trade fair and asked a bunch of Chinese manufacturer, who here can make us the cheapest mp3 that plays WMA that we can slap our anme on? Coupled with their “We’re Virgin, Shut Up” attitude, they deserved to be bloodied.
One down…
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This aside, Virgin unveiled their cellular service (Virgin Mobile) here in Montreal in typical Branson style: grandiose. They’ve teamed up with Bell Canada to use their network.
The man may not be an erudite but he is charismatic and quite affable after shaking his hand and chatting for 15 secs or so. He saw Kermie (my lime green iBook), smiled and said: Apple. one step ahead of PCs
*grin*
Makes you wonder how a guy named Alex Salkever got a job as a reporter/analyist for BusinessWeek. Just add his bones to the pile of other past “experts” who have consistently forecasted Apple’s doom and failure.
There’s a reason Steve Jobs runs Apple and Alex writes opinions.
Does anyone remember the analyst who claimed that Virgin was the most likely company to dethrone the iPod because they understood the hip crowd? I can’t remember who he was or who he wrote for. I think if someone can remember, then MDN ought to contact him and ask for a comment
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MW: much, as in are you wrong much mr. analyst?
Woohoo! Can you say cheapo microdrives for my digital camera when they clear these things out on Ebay!
Thanks D9, exactly what I was looking for. The article is here:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2004/tc20040310_2724_tc056.htm
So how about it MDN. I would love a quote from him.
MW anti, as in MDN is the anti-FUD
Oh well, Thurrott bought one.. he thought it beat the hell out of the iPod mini..
Soooo does that mean Thurrott was wrong..?
Again?
Yawn..
I find it funnie that all the companies and people bad mouthing Apple lately have been falling flat on their faces!! I mean it’s amazing. Apple comes out with a product and they know it’s the most innovative one and stand besides it. All the other companies instead of making their own innovations they come out and instead star yelling apple sucks, Apple is a closed system, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! and you wonder why they haven’t found a product to dethrown the iPod yet!
magic word all, as in ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL! lol
Virgin are smart enuff to fold while its just losses and not do the Napster and sell its profit division to focus on its losses.
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This gives a new meaning to the all-too-common term “iPod Killer.” The iPod Killer strikes again and Virgin Electronics is the latest victim.
The BW writer left the paper in December 2004. His last column was Dec 2, 2004, so I don’t think its worth it to get his comment. He’s not in the public eye anymore.
Cheers!
BTW, I’m not him! He’s another Alex.
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Winston-
Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant! (lame but hilarious)
Style – substance= Virgin
Style + substance= Apple
No Style – No substance= Dell
Do the Math!
simple1.. fix your spelling.. it’s atrocious
The biggest issue Virgin and other MP3/WM players have is that it’s harder to manage what you put on them.
iTunes makes it easy to integrate with the iPod, so they support each other. The iTMS is even better and revs up the synergy amongst the products.
Even though there are lots of great player products out there (some competitively priced, and many with features iPods don’t have), they lose because the software and market has gone elsewhere. It’s like the reverse of Macs vs. PCs: Windows Media music stores andplayers will have an audience, but it will be a niche.
Personally, I like the Virgin player, from the high overview they offer on their site. Dual outputs and RADIO — great features. And my Gen 3 iPod has a worse physical UI (four underscreen buttons & the wheelie) than many other players I’ve seen. (granted, the new click wheel is superior to everything else, in my opinion)
Virgin failed because Apple has the cool product and the more useable experience overall. We shouldn’t kid ourselves, though, that the iPod is superior in every way.
How’s this for a headline:
Virgin Gets F*CKED!
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