Someone's finally copied Apple's music strategy. That is,
selling an MP3 player and providing an online music store
where you can download tracks to use with the player. Those who
figured that Apple would be the only one to use this plan probably
hadn't considered that pretty much everything Apple comes up with-
ends up being copied by another company.
This time it's Dell
that's copying Apple. In a way, you could argue that Dell is trying
to be what Apple was trying to be in the mid-90s. They've got a
line of printers, handhelds, monitors - just about everything that
Apple had back then.
Apple got a little bit behind in terms of hardware quality
control - and also in terms of technology. They were still selling
180 MHz desktops in 1997, and their
Power Mac 5200s were based no parts
left over from the LC 630
series.
Dell, on the other hand, is not behind. They're just as far
ahead as any other PC company out there - and that gives them a bit
of an advantage. Not having to make sure their chip providers keep
up with a different platform allows them to concentrate on other
areas such as marketing.
Which, of course, means that Dell can branch out and start
selling PDAs to compete with Palm, Sony, and the rest; printers to
compete with Epson and others; and 
now
MP3 players, which are clearly designed to compete primarily with
Apple (interesting thing is, Dell's website still shows the Apple
iPod for sale).
Dell's new DJ (Digital Jukebox, left) is supposedly going to be
able to play tracks from Dell's music service, and there's already
a website (DJHacks.com)
dedicated to hacks for the device. The interface appears to be very
like that of the iPod, but I have to say that the device looks
nowhere near as sleek as the iPod.
It seems that few details are available for the Dell DJ -
apparently it will be released in time for the holiday season
(can't miss out on that, can they). The online store, however, will
be interesting. Will it be as easy to use as Apple's store? Will
it offer the same selection that Apple does, or will it manage to
outdo it?
If Apple can manage to come up with iTunes for Windows - and
fast - Dell will have some real stiff competition there. Already
many Windows users seem to own iPods, which means that a good
portion of them may well choose to use iTunes to buy music online
when it is available for Windows.
What would happen if Dell made its music service work with the
iPod? If it managed to have a selection of different songs than
Apple does, it might do quite well. Pricing is a hard issue,
though, as I seriously doubt record companies are willing to budge
from their fairly fixed pricing methods, so people will most likely
find no difference in the pricing between the Dell and the Apple
stores.
What if Apple made its music service work with the Dell DJ? We'd
have a really nice selection of songs for either device - assuming,
again, that both services offer slightly different music
choices.
Realistically, this won't happen. Apple will want to promote the
iPod, so its service will only function with that. Dell will want
to promote it's DJ as well, and allowing it's songs to be
downloaded by iPod users will only encourage people to use their
service, not their MP3 player.
