The headline over at TimesOnline read: “Dell sets out to tackle Apple with iPod rival.” I almost spit coffee all over my monitor. Is there anyone out there with a Digital Jukebox player in their hand? (Seriously, anyone?) Well, according to a report published in The Wall Street Journal, Dell is poised to once again enter the ring with Steve Jobs and co filling out the other corner. But before we delve into the whole possibility of Dell offering an mp3 player, let’s look at the numbers, just to get an idea of what they’d be up against:
Mp3-player market share:
Apple: 71 per cent
SanDisk: 11 per cent
Zune: 4 per cent
Hmmm. Well, I’m not going to use the word insurmountable, but its damn close. Even Microsoft, with their deep pockets, have failed to put a significant dent into Apple’s stranglehold on the market. Around here, and with most gadget websites, folks tend to be enamoured with Apple’s portable music player offerings. What one needs to bear in mind is that while Apple aficionados are technophiles, not all technophiles are Apple fan-boys and girls. Apple just happens to be pushing the boundaries and in their pole position they able to dictate the flow of popular technology. At the end of the day, what has got them 71 per cent of the market is innovation. The iPod isn’t simply a decent music player; it’s a damn intuitive piece of gadgetry. If Dell, or anyone else for that matter, has any intention of breaking into the market they’d best find the next evolution in portable media players and exploit the hell out of it. They need to do to Apple what Apple did to the mp3 player market all those years ago. But Dell does have an ace in the hole, and it’s an intriguing one.
Last year Dell bought a company called Zing, which will be supply software for the new music player, and just so happens to be co-founded by former Apple executive Tim Bucher. And here’s where things get interesting: the software would allow users to access and manage the content of the music library from other locations than their home computer. This suggests that one might be able to access one’s music library over the internet, allowing content playback from nearly any internet-enabled source. While this isn’t exactly an integral part of the music player itself, it’s certainly an interesting feature not offered by the competition and perhaps one that could catch the eye of consumers. How Dell plans to store such a massive collection of music online is up in the air but it seems like such a logical progression that it might just have enough impact to take something away from that 71 per cent.
The Dell player could launch as early as September
