“Dell Inc. stopped selling its most expensive digital music players after failing to take market share from Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod,” Connie Guglielmo reports for Bloomberg News. “Dell, the world’s largest personal computer maker, discontinued three Digital Jukebox players that sell for $200 to $300 in late December and early January, a spokesman said Friday. Dell still will sell the $99 DJ Ditty, he said.”
“The decision underscores the difficulty companies including Dell have had trying to unseat the best-selling iPod. Dell introduced the music players in 2003 as part of a strategy to expand sales beyond desktop PCs. The versions being scrapped used hard drives to store music; newer models use cheaper flash-memory chips,” Guglielmo reports. “It follows Apple’s introduction last fall of the Nano, an ultrathin MP3 player that uses flash instead of a hard drive. It replaced the popular iPod Mini, which used a hard drive. Apple’s full-size iPods still contain hard drives. ‘No vendor other than Apple has really stepped up to the combination of design, marketing and user experience that is required by this segment,’ said Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group, a research firm based in San Jose, Calif. The iPod accounted for 69 percent of all music players sold from January through November in the U.S., according to NPD Group Inc. in Port Washington, N.Y. SanDisk Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., Singapore’s Creative Technology Ltd. and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. each have less than 10 percent.”
Full article here.
Yum, a particularly savory kill. Whatsamatter, Dell, done in by a “fad?” 
(Amazingly, even Endlere’s quote makes sense.)
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Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ, etc.
Cheers,
Tim.
Magic word = Result!
I think he should sell the company and give all the money back to the share holders.
That was s resounding thud!
NEXT!
Apocalypse is awaiting, Rob & MDN agree on something, run, run for your lives all the signs are out there
There is a good reason they don’t include December 05 in their 69% for iPod stats.
80% plus is just too humiliating.
THE amazing thing is that people would spend $100 on a DJ Ditty or another also-ran rather than ponny up $200 for a Nano. Apple could really slaughter the market with a $149 1GB nano…and end-of-life the shuffle brand.
This is not a good thing in my opinion….
Essentially what may happen is all these companies with minor marketshare percentages will begin folding and the only ones left standing will be iPod in the number one spot and (un)-Creative at a distant second..
The problem with this is that with less competition a company like Creative could actually GAIN traction in the number two spot by selling to all of the people who simply WILL NOT buy an Apple product and would have bought one of the other brands… If a company like Creative gets above say a 10% marketshare I could easily see more third party accessories becoming available specifically made for Creative players which could boost their sales even higher. Creative players could begin to be seen as a viable alternative (even though it isn’t) to the iPod…
Creative’s Zen Vision M recently won the “best in show” award at CES and it is getting glowing reviews at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CS7U1C/sr=1-1/qid=1139068313/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-5699143-7099362?_encoding=UTF8
Hee! Maybe they can go back to selling iPods at Dell.com!
I feel like such a Mac zealot for taking such delight in the death of iPod competitors. But, hey, if said “competitors” weren’t such crappy jokes meant to prop up Windows-only solutions, maybe I wouldn’t hate them so damn much.
Trevor, the “I HATE APPLE!” market is actually very very small, nowhere near enough to get Creative to 10%. The “I know nothing about Apple” market is huge, but that market tends to go with whatever’s popular. The same forces that drive them towards Windows drive them toward the iPod.
Someday, someone will build a true competitor to the iPod, but I sincerely doubt it will come from Creative. Perhaps Sony. But my money is on some new company, one that doesn’t even exist yet, that may be founded by people who cut their teeth working for Apple.
Trevor,
SanDisk is the distant number two to Apple, not Creative.
The roadkill sure is gettin’ thick lately, ain’t it?
Lord Robin:
Creative already has a 5% marketshare and the Creative Zen Vision M is being considered the first match for the iPod w/video. Sure it is a complete ripoff, but the Hate Apple people don’t care.. As I said, it won “Best In Show” at CES and read the reviews that I linked to at Amazon to see how people are raving about it…
IDC:
SanDisk is the distant number two for flash based players, but Creative is the distant number two for hard drive based players.
Trevor,
Meaningless overall. Creative is hemorrhaging cash and will not outlast SanDisk in the media player market.
iPod=serial killer. Next on the list is Creative.
Related: Creative’s Zen Vision:M green with Apple iPod envy
Ha ha! Those Amazon reviews must be fixed, probably by all of Creative’s employees.. Who else in their right mind would list that not having to be stuck with just one software (iTunes) is an advantage that the Creative player has! Yeah, I really want to sync my players with three different applications just to do what iTunes does. That’s a BIG advantage! NOT!
Does the Creative display really have 252,000 colors vs. iPods 64,000?
So is Michael Dell gonna buy back all those useless MP3 players and give the money back to the new iPod holders? Cuz, you know, that’s what I would do.
Michael Dell finally ran out of family members to pass along Christmas/birthday gifts to.
Thank goodness. The flood of consumer market products with ugly design and mediocre quality will recede some. Now a few more manufacturers should resign from the portable music area as well.
To Tim D: You must be a fan of The Smiths. I agree, hang the DJ. If I were a Dell DJ owner, I would begin to “Panic” now.
Did you notice that Dell is promoting the Zen (along with the Ditty) on their DJ page now?
“The problem with this is that with less competition a company like Creative could actually GAIN traction in the number two spot by selling to all of the people who simply WILL NOT buy an Apple product and would have bought one of the other brands… “
@ Trevor, don’t you think the people who don’t want an iPod would have already bought one if they wanted one?
Other players just don’t sell.
Derrick,
Gifts?
The number of colors doesn’t mean a thing, if you can’t discern a difference when looking at it. It’s something about the difference between using an 8-bit vs a 10-bit chip. No one that I know sees a difference. The way Creative keeps trumpeting the stat, they seem to create a little FUD as if the stat were more about pixels, where more pixels would have a difference.
As for the DJ Ditty, Dell is keeping that because they can use it for promotions. A free Ditty if you buy a PC.
Back to Creative, I wouldn’t worry too much about them. They make less than $1 dollar per Zen sold.
YAY! Down with DELL!
Remember today’s date and time. Rob Enderle actually said something about Apple that wasn’t incorrect!
Wonders never cease!
Good. So some time in the future we look forward the next headline:
“DELL DROPS PC SALES AS APPLE MAC MARKET SHARE RISES SPECTACULARLY”
That will again be no loss to anyone…
Please add the “to” to the spot between ‘forward’ and ‘the’ in the first line.
..I’zzz a little bit pizzzed as I have found a really nice drinkz…gin with pomegranate juice and a slice of limon..mmmmm! (19:10 here – so its legitamate az the sun is below ze yardarm.