What the World Needs Now: Another Dell MP3 Player

When Dell launched its first round of MP3 players back in 2003, reviewers were impressed, myself included. The Dell DJ line sounded good, it had a long battery life, solid design and a jogwheel that aped the iPod’s scroll wheel nicely. But people didn’t buy them, and now the Dell DJ site is just a […]
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When Dell launched its first round of MP3 players back in 2003, reviewers were impressed, myself included. The Dell DJ line sounded good, it had a long battery life, solid design and a jogwheel that aped the iPod's scroll wheel nicely.

But people didn't buy them, and now the Dell DJ site is just a link farm to MP3 players from other manufacturers (Apple notably excepted).

But it's hard to keep a good man down. You won't find it in their mission statement, but Dell must believe that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Apparently the mediocre performance of a certain Microsoft MP3 player, left for dead even by fanboy Zune Tattoo Guy, is not seen as a warning shot right between the eyes. The ginormous market share that Apple has steadily garnered while Dell's Creative-technology-powered line crashed and burned is, it seems, an accident of history.

Yes, Dell wants back in. Three cheers for cockeyed optimism!

Dell tells the subscription-firewalled Wall Street Journal that it plans to release a sub-$100 player with Wi-Fi and access to some sort of Dell music subscription.

In a letter not sent to shareholders, Dell CEO Michael Dell explained the thinking behind the move:

Dear Dell Shareholder,

Hey it's me, Michael. Do you remember how well our last round of MP3
players did? Let me rephrase that. Did you know that we used to sellMP3 players? Well, we did.

And it was a resounding success. Oprah Winfrey declared the Dell DJ
one of her favorite things of 2005, while the "Dell DJ" brand becamenearly synonymous with the idea of listening to music while walkingaround. Even our ads were huge, and became responsible for breakingseveral up-and-coming bands. Our power in the digital music marketplacehas morphed into power over music in general, to the point that themajor labels have been forced to take strategic steps to combat ourdominance. Wait, that wasn't us. Who was I thinking of? Oh, nevermind.

I know what you're thinking... Apple's near ownership ofthe North American MP3 player market looks like it's going to lastuntil everyone switches to using telephones or sunglasses
to listen to music, and even then, Steve Jobs is pretty well positionedto continue drinking our milkshake well into the 24th century.

But dude, don't worry. I've got a plan. Check it out.

Apple doesn't sell any MP3 players below $100 that have Wi-Fi, and can't do so in the future. Why? Because we bought a company
that makes it possible, and are pretty sure that Apple will never beable to create something similar. Technology doesn't tend to getcheaper or more available over time, as we all know, and so Apple,
which already has a couple of different players with Wi-Fi(one of which also has AT&T connectivity), will be unable tocompete with our sub-$100 MP3 player, because we announced ours firstand that's all the public cares about.

Woah, I nearly forgot to mention the subscription service that goesalong with this thing. We're going to charge people a monthly fee foraccess to Microsoft-DRMed music. Sure, Yahoo, which has all sorts ofexperience running music sites, abandoned this exact strategy earlier this year. But what do they know? And I concede that another subscription service, Napster, might be worth more dead than alive.
But it'll work for us, because our subscription files will be availableover Wi-Fi. Yeah, I know Rhapsody already does that. But for us, itwill be different for some reason.

Yours in optimism,

Michael

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