Sony iPod assault falls short

Sony is planning to introduce its new Walkman in the U.S. this spring, but industry watchers say features fall short of Apple's current offerings. Apple had 45 percent of the Japanese market for digital music players in January, compared to Sony's 15 percent, according to BusinessWeek. Sony hopes the new Walkman will become more than just a commodity, boasting hard drive-based capacities ranging from 6-20GB to complement Sony's current Flash-based lineup. Sony's new player offers such features as an "Artist Link" button, which analyzes users musical tastes and suggests new artists based on those tastes, as well as a "Time Machine Shuffle," which plays music only from a specific year. Sony is bypassing iTunes in Japan by offering popular songs from its record label via Mora--its online store--in an attempt to lull consumers into purchasing the company's Walkman which is better integrated with Mora. Despite this, Sony's player lacks video capability, is larger than Apple's biggest model, and offers 10GB less space than Apple's low-end 30GB video-capable iPod.

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