Why Can Sony Figure Out The MP3 Player Market And Compete With The iPod?
We believe Sony has done a poor job of marketing its MP3 players, starting with naming the products (ex: should I buy the “NW-E505” or the “NW-E307”?). In general, from Apple’s perspective, the company believes that Sony has not gotten a strong grasp of the recipe required to create a strong customer experience with both hardware and software. Sony’s historical strength has been in its hardware; most of the company’s engineers are hardware focused. Sony, therefore, has been unable to create a customer experience similar to what exists with the iPod/iTunes integration. Will The iPod shuffle Stay In The Lineup And When Will It Be Updated? The inclusion of the shuffle in iPod family was originally about protecting the low end of the market. At the time the shuffle was released, Apple did not have anything below $249 and competitors’ products (Creative, iriver, Sony, etc.) were seeing some success in the low end. The iPod shuffle took the low end of the market away from competitors and, mo
