Tech Shout!

Electronics manufacturer Dell announced on Monday that it would be discontinuing its hard drive-based mp3 players. Though Dell said it would still offer the 512MB Dell Ditty Mp3 player.

Dell will stop production of 5GB Pocket DJ, 20GB Dell DJ20 and 30GB Dell DJ30 music players.

Analysts believe that Dell was never able to differentiate itself from its competitors, thus it got lost among the huge number of Windows-based players available on the market today. Dell has also been unable to compete with Apple iPod in the MP3 player market.

Dell launched the DJ Ditty Mp3 player last September. The DJ Ditty uses flash memory rather than small hard drives to store mp3 songs, making it more long-lasting and appropriate for exercising. Dell has not released sales figures for the unit.