Dell dumps hard-drive MP3 players

Dell is to focus on its DJ Ditty Flash-based music players

Dell has discontinued its line of hard drive-based MP3 players and will focus on its DJ Ditty Flash-based devices, the company has confirmed to vnunet.com. 

"We are streamlining our product portfolio," said Liem Nguyen, a spokesman for Dell's consumer business.

Dell has been selling its Pocket DJ hard drive-based music players with capacities of 5GB, 20GB and 30GB since 2003.

Late last year the company introduced its DJ Ditty Flash-based players in the US which feature 512MB of memory and sell at $99.

The hard drive-based music player business is dominated by Apple's iPod, and Dell had only a limited market share. But Nguyen said that the decision to discontinue the Pocket DJ is unrelated to Apple's stranglehold.

"It was not really about competing against any competitor," he said, claiming that the decision was driven by customer demand.

The market for Flash-based media players offers more space to compete because Apple's iPod Nano and iPod Mini have less share in the segment. Flash memory also offers more flexibility in the design of the player and allows for more rugged devices.

Dell plans to keep selling hard drive-based players from Creative on its website.