Dell fled the MP3 player market

Dell just quietly ended the DJ Ditty music player, after less than a year. Originally this device was launched to compete with Apple's iPod Shuffle.

A spokesman for the company confirmed that Dell had stopped selling Ditty since August 17, but refused to reveal the reason for the decision. Most likely, after the laptop battery scandal, Dell wanted to focus its efforts on "nuclear" businesses such as PCs, printers and flat-screen TVs.

Source: engadget Ditty player model was announced last September by Dell as a direct competitor to the iPod Shuffle. Both use flash memory chips to store music, which is 512 MB and costs 99 USD. But because Ditty uses a music file format that compresses music more efficiently, it can store up to 220 songs - 100 more than Shuffle.

This competition from Dell has forced Apple to cope with lower product costs. The 512 MB Shuffle version is now available for $ 69, while the 1 GB version is priced at $ 99.

And yet, Ditty has a 1-inch LCD monitor and FM radio while Shuffle lacks both.

Yet, yesterday afternoon, visitors to Dell's website were only able to choose in the forest of Creative Technologies digital music players, SanDisk, iRiver and Samsung, but they didn't see Ditty. The company spokesman said the entire warehouse has been liquidated.

Dell entered the digital music player market in 2003 but immediately struggled for competition. Last January, Dell had to cease production of DJs using hard drives.

Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin said that the reason Dell failed was the inappropriate sales model. Customers are not allowed to listen directly before buying eyebrows. Moreover, all firms have to be very difficult to compete with Apple - the company holds 70% market share.

" It is a smart move to run for people at the moment ," Bajarin said.

This is a very unimaginable moment for Dell. Last week, the company recalled more than 4.1 million laptop batteries due to the risk of fire, second quarter profits fell 51% and were also investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Thien Y