Has anybody noticed that in just over 2 days since this new Clip+ board was just launched, there are already over 160 posts?
Compare that with a measly 84 posts in the board for SanDisk’s previous release, the SlotRadio player which (according to certain SanDisk pep-talkers here) was going to revolutionize the way the world listens to music. 84 posts. . . that’s over twice the volume of activity surrounding the new Clip+ player, and the SlotRadio board was opened in March 2009, 5 months ago!
Even more telling about where the consumer’s interest lies is the fact that the SlotMusic player and it’s forum board have been out for almost a year, and still only has 140 posts to date! That bears repeating . . . 140 posts in 1 year!
I think the lesson here is clear for anyone to see. Hopefully the suits at SanDisk are taking notes. Put out a decent, higher-end, more expensive product and you will see a virtual firestorm of activity, resulting in increased sales and subsequent profit.
Give the masses something cheap, cheesy with no viewscreen, user-controllable options, settings or high quality sound and it will die on the vine, no matter how much you hope & pray that it will stimulate sales of prerecorded music on memory cards.
It’s been said that the ‘Slot’ players are perfect for, and should be enjoyed by those in this world who are less ‘tech-savvy’ and have no desire to learn or spend the time loading music, fiddling with settings and so forth. I think SanDisk has a warped sense of who their customer base really is, and what demographic they should be marketing to. Do they want to sell a few units to Grandma & Grandpa? Or would they rather sell millions if units to everyone else; at least half of whom will either immediately, or at some point in the future buy a memory card (if not more than one). This is the way to stimulate memory card sales. Not with some toy and card loaded with music that you won’t even tell the customer what’s on it until after they’ve already bought it!
Please SanDisk, don’t sell your customers short and ‘assume’ you know what they want and that they are too dumb or lazy to want or operate anything ‘technical’. Companies have gone bankrupt adopting this dis-respectful attitude regarding their customers, and ‘dumbing-down’ their product line.
Personally, I’d like to see SanDisk dig themselves out of this rut they seem to have gotten themselves into. They’ve got the know-how. They’ve proven that in the past. They just need the desire & the courage move forward, rather than taking a back seat to their competitors.
I now will humbly step down from my soapbox.