James Delahunty
18 Feb 2005 6:06
Japanese electronics giant Sony has said that it will release a new portable digital audio player later this year that it is confident can dethrone the iPod. Sony is responsible for the Walkman, a device which changed the way the world listened to music. "We are confident of being able to offer by the end of the year a product that is much more competitive than the iPod," Sony president Kunitake Ando said. He said the success of the iPod was simply due to the fact that Apple made it easy to use.
"We have to develop software that makes use of our products more intuitive and simple," he told reporters. Apple's iPod device can store thousands of songs and recently versions of it have added support for photo storage also. The iPod is becoming increasingly popular, and also driving more customers to Apple's iTunes music store where they can purchase digital tracks that can be stored on an iPod.
Rumours were circulating that Sony were to buy Apple, but Ando dismissed these rumours saying it has become too expensive due to the success of the iPod. "We have put in place a very aggressive plan to become number one again in portable music", said Nobuyuki Idei, Sony chairman and chief executive officer.
Source:
Yahoo