Dell announced recently that it is pulling out of the MP3 player market due to high competition from products such as Apple's iPod.

Dell began producing MP3 players in 2003; in February 2006, Dell halted sales of their hard-drive based MP3 players, but continued to produce the lower-end "DJ Ditty," (similar to the "iPod Shuffle"). (Source: dailytech.com)

Dell spokeswoman, Anne Camden confirmed that "as of last week, we did remove the DJ Ditty from our web site and we are not going to offer a follow up product." Camden also noted that the company will be tightening "consumer focus in core areas like PCs, printers and TVs" but will still offer third party media players, such as the Creative Zen, for customer purchase. (Source: afterdawn.com)

August has been a rough month for Dell, as this news comes in closely on the heels of Dell's recent announcement that profits had fallen 50%, which was then followed by the company's recall of over 4 million laptop batteries.

Dell's Exodus Past Due

With the MP3 player market dominated by Apple's increasingly popular iPod, Dell's DJ Ditty really never stood a chance. David Card, an analyst with JupiterResearch points out that Dell's exit from the MP3 player market is past due. Card notes that "Nobody is doing well but Dell was doing particularly unwell. I don't know why Dell wanted to be in this market so they might as well cut their losses and get out." (Source: abcnews.com)

The MP3 Player Market "Not Shrinking"

Dell's departure from the MP3 Market doesn't necessarily mean that the market is suffering. Card notes that ""The market is not shrinking, [and] it's still pretty bullish" which is proven by higher quality up-and-coming products from other companies. The expectations for SanDisk's Sansa e200 and Microsoft's Zune are high and these products may eventually push Apple to keep innovating in order to remain the market's number one competitor. (Source: abcnews.com)