Oh gawd, Dell releasing Zing-based DJ Ditty in September?

Ready for the DJ Ditty 2? You'd better be because the Wall Street Journal says that "several Dell officials" have confirmed in-house testing of a new sub-$100 digital music player that could go on sale as early as September. Dell also plans to launch a download service and software to "organize music and movies from various online sources" in order to properly seed the product ecosystem. The new player features a small navigation screen and basic button controls and will connect to online music services over WiFi. Unfortunately, there's no mention of DRM, only that downloaded music can be shared with PCs and cellphones. So... if you're wondering how Dell's acquisition of Zing might play into this then go get yourself a cookie, Dell's device is based on Zing's software (that's a pre-Dell era Zing prototype pictured). In fact, Zing will come pre-installed on a series of Dell laptops and "other devices" (like a Dell smartphone, maybe?) and will likely connect to "Zingspot" if Dell puts its trademark to use.

Funny, this all sounds very 2006 to us as we struggle to see how Dell's player / service will compete in a market already shaking itself out -- right Sony, Yahoo, and Microsoft? In fact, the whole WSJ piece seems like an attempt for Dell to gauge public reaction without suffering the indignity of a failed product announcement. Michael Tatelman, Dell's VP of Consumer Sales, says he'll decide "in a few weeks" how to proceed with the player and may decide not to sell it at all. So go ahead folks, now's your chance to tell Dell how you feel with all the anonymous key slapping you can muster in the comments.

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[(Unverified) Posted Jul 31st 2008 12:12AM]

Wow.... this looks like an unsophisticated and ancient GPS device. Wtf is Dell trying to pull? I used to live in Austin, and Dell has been a joke there for half of the last decade. The half decade before that, they made Austin proud. Then again, that was when their computers were rock solid. Now they're as soft as a cheap sea sponge.

Repeat: WTF Dell.....wtf?

This thing better be priced below 25 bucks to have any chance in hell of success. BUH-BYE...

And I'd like to mention that a lot of the kids who have lots of money to throw around--that's not entirely true. My half bro who is about 14 now has gone through 2-3 cheap MP3 players, all non-iPods, but he got them because of their cheap pricepoint. However, he got what he paid for--they've all broken down in less than 6 months each. Maybe Dell can make a cheap device that won't crap out quite so soon... doubt it based on the semi-recent hardware record.

[wshwe Posted Aug 2nd 2008 6:07PM]

Apple will take Dell to the cleaners once again!

[Cyberdyne Systems Posted Aug 3rd 2008 8:45PM]

Apple in the left corner, DELL in the right... Let the carnage begin.

Seriously though Dell, that's like literally burning money. Money that you could be pouring into the R&D department in the Laptop/Desktop segment. Dell's laptops are butt ugly lately (or here for a while now, except the m1330). Buy some designers instead of a new PMP segment.