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| Thursday, July 08, 2004 |
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Apple Blasts Sony on Claims for New Walkman
07-07-04 02:55 PM EST Staff Writer of The Wall Street Journal
SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL), aiming to protect the lead of its iPod digital music player, launched a verbal strike against rival Sony Corp.'s ( SNE) new Network Walkman music player, which is designed to be an iPod killer.
In a prepared statement, Apple said Sony isn't accurately depicting the song capacity of its new 20-gigabyte Network Walkman. While Sony says the device can hold 13,000 tracks, Apple alleges that the Japanese electronics giant, in calculating the storage capacity of the Network Walkman, is using songs that are compressed into digital files of inferior fidelity to those that Apple uses to calculate how many songs the iPod can hold. (Digital music of lower quality takes up less storage but delivers poorer sound than high-quality songs.)
As a result, Apple said, Sony's Walkman actually holds only 4,800 songs that have been compressed into a higher quality format.
"We're disappointed that Sony, which is new to this market, has decided to make their first impression by attempting to mislead the press and customers," Apple said in a statement.
Apple's statement comes in response to the big marketing splash that Sony made last week when it unveiled its $399 20-gigabyte Network Walkman. During its announcement, Sony showed how its new Walkman is smaller than Apple's iPod and it also said that the device, using its ATRAC data-compression technology, could hold 13,000 songs. In contrast, Apple's 20-gigabyte iPod holds just 5,000 songs and its 40-gigabyte iPod holds 10,000 songs.
That Apple, which is normally tight-lipped about its products, will now engage in a war of words with Sony shows how far the Cupertino, Calif., company will go to protect the market share lead that its iPod digital music player has gained over the past few years.
The iPod has been a source of new growth for Apple, forming about 15% of the company's overall revenue. The device has rejuvenated interest in Apple even as sales of its core Macintosh computer models have slowed. According to the Yankee Group, the iPod brand has a 50% to 60% share of the U.S. market for hard-drive- based audio players.
"Sony chose to play marketing games so we wanted to set things right so that people could compare the devices apples to apples," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of hardware product marketing.
Sony reacted angrily to Apple's statement. Todd Schrader, Sony Electronics' vice president of portable audio products, said the "Walkman has always been about choice."
He said consumers can play songs on the Walkman in either a high-quality or low-quality format. He noted the new music player also has 30 hours of battery life, which is "three times more than the competition."
Mr. Schrader also took issue with Apple's characterization that Sony is new to the digital music market. He said Sony has been in the market since 1999 and currently has several music player products priced from $59 to $399 that can play digital music downloaded from a personal computer.
"Sony isn't a one-trick pony," he said.
-Pui-Wing Tam, The Wall Street Journal
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| posted by Perimbean @ 10:48 PM |
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