View this article at: http://dev.macnn.com/articles/06/05/01/sony.preps.ipod.killer Monday, May 01, 2006 9:15pm Sony plans iPod competitor Sony is hoping to dethrone the iPod with its next-generation music player. A new report claims that Sony is prepping a new music player that it hopes will rival the success of the iPod. Due within the next year, Sony says the next-generation player will focus on design and long-battery life. The company has tried unsuccessfully to unseat the iPod as the defacto standard for music players, according to the report: "Sony has tried to unseat Apple in that market before with little success, and its recently launched A-series Walkman digital music players are on sale only in Japan and Europe.... The new player will be lauched within the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2007, Yuhara said. He wouldn't be more specific, but acknowledged that the holiday sales period between the US Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays is an important time for consumer electronics products. Sony sold 4.5 million digital music players in the year to March, and expects this to rise to 5.5 million in the current year."