Comments on: Archos overtaking iPod and Zune!? http://blog.musmo.com/2006/11/23/archos-overtaking-ipod-and-zune/ Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:26:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: maths http://blog.musmo.com/2006/11/23/archos-overtaking-ipod-and-zune/#comment-2 maths Wed, 20 Dec 2006 14:28:31 +0000 http://dev.musmo.com/index.php/2006/11/23/archos-overtaking-ipod-and-zune/#comment-2 It is a damning affirmation of Archos' failure in marketing and promotions that your opening comment states "Who would have known that there's a product called Archos?" especially in light of the fact that Archos actually introduced the world's first portable mp3 player with 10/20 Gb capacity. Even all the way back in 2002 instead of opting for the newly introduced small capacity iPod, I was already trying to look cool with my brick of a 60Gb Archos mp3 player. Anyway, ground-breaking as it was then, the Archos was bedevilled by firmware inefficiencies and inferior battery support, so much so that an open source movement and independent user community grew up around it to give life to a product that had promise but which the manufacturers had not optimised sufficiently. And thus grew the Rockbox project at www.rockbox.org which has now evolved to supply alternative firmware for portable players that include not just the Archos but also iRiver, iAudio and even the iPod. Archos has always been quick to market claiming pole positions in the portable audio and video sectors, but their emphasis on quick and not enough on marketing has seen their achievements unmatched by market share or mindshare... It is a damning affirmation of Archos’ failure in marketing and promotions that your opening comment states “Who would have known that there’s a product called Archos?” especially in light of the fact that Archos actually introduced the world’s first portable mp3 player with 10/20 Gb capacity. Even all the way back in 2002 instead of opting for the newly introduced small capacity iPod, I was already trying to look cool with my brick of a 60Gb Archos mp3 player.

Anyway, ground-breaking as it was then, the Archos was bedevilled by firmware inefficiencies and inferior battery support, so much so that an open source movement and independent user community grew up around it to give life to a product that had promise but which the manufacturers had not optimised sufficiently. And thus grew the Rockbox project at http://www.rockbox.org which has now evolved to supply alternative firmware for portable players that include not just the Archos but also iRiver, iAudio and even the iPod.

Archos has always been quick to market claiming pole positions in the portable audio and video sectors, but their emphasis on quick and not enough on marketing has seen their achievements unmatched by market share or mindshare…

]]>