sleepy

Why Is Dell Trying to Compete With the iPod?

It can't be about the music player; it's about the desktop. Dell can pre-install an iTunes alternative on every consumer machine it ships ( the delLife suite?), and hopes this large number of pre-installs can bootstrap an ecosystem the way Apple bootstrapped the iPod/iTunes using Mac users. Dell need a music player to make their ecosystem look plausible. They can't believe they have a chance to sell better than, say, Zune.

Dell has a hard lesson to learn - marketing efforts in a market where you don't dominate create more business for the market leader than they do for you. The people who were only thinking "Dell" start thinking "music", then they actually look at the alternative.

This just re-emphasises that the Dell/Microsoft era is over, and consumers will realise they need to widen their horizons.