MP3 Players
Monday, April 02, 2007
The market of MP3 players is still considered to be in its infancy, even though Apple has produced several generations of the popular iPod. The iPod accounts for about 80% of the sales of digital music players, although there are several digital music players available on the market.
Creative Technology is one MP3 developer that has positioned itself to be a large competitor in this market. In 2005, Creative Technology was awarded a patent in the United States for the interface design that it was using on its digital music players. The patent was for how the files on the digital music player would be organized. Creative Technology was one of the first companies to produce digital music players but has been overshadowed by the iPod’s success in the marketplace. In November 2004, the boss of Creative Technology, Sim Wong Hoo, said that the MP3 war had started and that he was aiming at his competitors. Creative Technology’s first MP3 player was the Nomad Jukebox MP3 player. The player was shipped thirteen months before the Apple iPod was even announced.
There have been several MP3 players enter the market since the beginnings of the digital music player. SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, Phillips and Dell all had MP3 players on the market. Many of these have been popular because their prices were considerably lower than the iPod. The expense of the iPod can be attributed to the hard drive that it uses for storage while the other smaller digital music players rely on a flash drive. This allows them to be smaller and more compact. They don’t, however, feature the extensive memory, interface capabilities or video capabilities that the iPod has. Apple has answered these smaller and less expensive players by introducing the iPod nano and shuffle to the line-up.
Dell has apparently admitted defeat in the MP3 market. Their DJ Ditty has disappeared from the catalog and the web. Dell initially entered the market in 2003 to get in on the iPod and MP3 player craze, but the iPod took off and beat everybody out on sales. Dell attempted to compete with features and price, but it was impossible with the popularity of the iPod. The DJ Ditty just couldn’t keep up with the iPod.
The MP3 player market is projected to increase to a $58 billion dollar market by next year and only increasing in value as technology becomes better. Everybody is working on a thinner hard drive with more features and better compatibility.
Creative Technology is one MP3 developer that has positioned itself to be a large competitor in this market. In 2005, Creative Technology was awarded a patent in the United States for the interface design that it was using on its digital music players. The patent was for how the files on the digital music player would be organized. Creative Technology was one of the first companies to produce digital music players but has been overshadowed by the iPod’s success in the marketplace. In November 2004, the boss of Creative Technology, Sim Wong Hoo, said that the MP3 war had started and that he was aiming at his competitors. Creative Technology’s first MP3 player was the Nomad Jukebox MP3 player. The player was shipped thirteen months before the Apple iPod was even announced.
There have been several MP3 players enter the market since the beginnings of the digital music player. SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, Phillips and Dell all had MP3 players on the market. Many of these have been popular because their prices were considerably lower than the iPod. The expense of the iPod can be attributed to the hard drive that it uses for storage while the other smaller digital music players rely on a flash drive. This allows them to be smaller and more compact. They don’t, however, feature the extensive memory, interface capabilities or video capabilities that the iPod has. Apple has answered these smaller and less expensive players by introducing the iPod nano and shuffle to the line-up.
Dell has apparently admitted defeat in the MP3 market. Their DJ Ditty has disappeared from the catalog and the web. Dell initially entered the market in 2003 to get in on the iPod and MP3 player craze, but the iPod took off and beat everybody out on sales. Dell attempted to compete with features and price, but it was impossible with the popularity of the iPod. The DJ Ditty just couldn’t keep up with the iPod.
The MP3 player market is projected to increase to a $58 billion dollar market by next year and only increasing in value as technology becomes better. Everybody is working on a thinner hard drive with more features and better compatibility.
