Friday, September 23, 2005

More Ditties About the Ditty

Technology News adds its two cents on Dell's recently announced DJ Ditty personal audio player. Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg commented that although feature wise the Ditty matches up well with Apple's iPod Shuffle, it's not a true comparison. He said, "Apple has done an incredible job of evangelizing the market on features and, of course, on brand and cachet. So while people talk about the fact that the Ditty has a screen and the Shuffle doesn't, Apple has made the lack of a screen a feature and not a liability for consumers."

"Dell believes the market is still somewhat nascent. The vast majority of consumers don't own MP3 players, but the problem is that the iPod has become a different device. IPod is not a generic term for MP3 players. There's been no brand dilution of iPod. Consumers are very specific. When they say they want an iPod, they want something from Cupertino with white headphones," added Gartenberg.