HandHeld Entertainment Inc.'s Lost Opportunity: Too Little, Too Late

HandHeld Entertainment's (ZVUE) [articles] ZP-3 and PVP-200 players are now at Wal-Mart stores according to various accounts, and are even available on Walmart.com (WMT).

That's a good step, but I still don't think the offering is competitive. Wal-Mart sells the clunky PVP-200 for $94.86 online with 128MB memory, yet for less than four dollars more it offers the sleek Creative Zen V 1GB portable video player with 8x the memory and an OLED display.

This holiday season will likely be remembered as a critical lost opportunity for ZVUE. It offered too little, too late, and has now positioned itself squarely as a third-tier hardware manufacturer coupled with third-tier non-proprietary content. If I ran HandHeld, I would try to raise more cash before the YouTube comparisons fade from investor's memories, and the reality of Christmas sales results set in.

Disclosure: Author has no position in ZVUE