A report claims that Del has a serious iPod rival in the works, which will also copy Apple's gadget in its market strategy: it will be paired with an online music download service. Dell previously tried to make a successful MP3 player in 2003, Dell DJ Ditty, but while it was inexpensive, light, and small, it was hard to use due to the very small display and the very few buttons. However, the Ditty had very good sound and was pretty small, including also a FM tuner.

Now, Dell is at it again. Probably better prepared, the personal computer maker is trying to snatch up a slice of the booming online music market. According to WSJ, Dell's new MP3 player is still going to bet its money on a small, cheap device. Dell's new player allegedly features a small navigation screen and basic button controls to scroll through music play lists, the newspaper reported. Connectivity options include a Wi-Fi Internet connection.

Dell will also develop special software which will efficiently organize music and movies downloaded from various online sources, which will compensate for the gadget's inconvenient controls. The software behind Dell's device comes from Zing, a small company Dell acquired a year ago.

However, the competition in this field is tough. Its first rival is Sandisk, which ranks second after Apple on the digital portable music players market and produces its own flash memory, which drives production costs lower. There's also legendary digital sound company Creative, the father of the Sound Blaster card, whose players are still around and feature good sound quality. Microsoft's Zune is somewhere in between Creative and Sandisk.

Overall, it's hard to imagine that the Dell David will manage to bother, if not kill, the iPod Goliath. The launch will allegedly take place sometime in September, which means by this time next year we'll know whether Dell's initiative paid off.

Recently, Dell released a new mini-PC, called Dell Studio Hybrid, which has an Intel Core 2 duo processor and comes with Windows Vista installed. As far as memory is concerned, the desktop has 2 GB of RAM, and has 250 GB of storage space, more than enough for a family PC. One of the cool things about it is that it comes with a Blu-Ray DVD player. It seems that after attacking Apple's MiniMac, Dell decided to take on Apple's iPod. What's next, a Dell iPhone killer?

Dell, Inc. was founded in 1984 by Michael Dell as PC's Limited with capital of $1000. Now it employs nearly 90,000 people worldwide and has a market capitalization of around $45 billion. It currently holds the second spot in computer-sales within the industry behind the Hewlett-Packard Company. Assembly of desktop computers for the North American market takes place in Lebanon TN, Austin TX, and Winston-Salem NC, with servers built in Austin TX, while most of Dell notebooks are made in China and Malaysia.