Dell abandons portable mp3 market

By Tom Sanders on Aug 24, 2006 4:01 PM
Filed under Hardware

DJ Ditty killed after 11 months.

Dell has discontinued its line of DJ Ditty flash based portable mp3 player.

The devices have been available for 11 months. Initially launched last September, the DJ Ditty players disappeared from the computer maker's webpage some time last week. Dell instead will be reselling Sandisk's Sansa players and the hard drive based Creative Vision.

The discontinuing of the DJ Ditty marks Dell's complete retreat from the portable media player market. The computer manufacturer earlier this year had already killed its line of hard drive based media players.

The pull-out from the media player segment forms yet another embarrassment for Dell.

The company last week was forced to recall 4.1m laptop batteries and reported disappointing sales over the most recent quarter. New data from analyst firm IDC furthermore indicated that the company has lost market share in the server market.