Walkman celebrates 25 years, with a player to topple the iPod
July 02, 2004 Edition 1
Tokyo - It has sold about 340-million units globally, and changed the way the world listens to music. And yesterday, the Walkman turned 25.
Sony Corp marked the occasion by unveiling the latest of its 1 100 models, a 20-gigabyte hard drive-based player that it said - at 110g and with a 45mm internal hard drive - was the world's smallest and lightest portable music player .
At a media party, Sony president Kunitake Ando reminisced about a product that when introduced in 1979 cost about $200 - about half a month's rent in New York.
"When it was introduced in America, it was a time of big hi-fi stereos and people couldn't believe you would pay $200 for something so small that was play-back only," said Ando, who was a Sony employee living in Manhattan at the time.
"But people thought, 'This is fantastic,' " he said.
The Walkman - which was first listed as a word in the Petit Larousse dictionary in 1981 - "created a new culture" in portable music that lived on through a music revolution that evolved to the CD, mini-disc and now MP3 music formats, Ando said. It quickly became a common noun.
"Despite the many technological advances and changes in media, the reason it has sold more than 330-million units is because people have thought there is no walkman like a Walkman," the Sony chief said.
The company's new model, the Network Walkman NW-HD1 - measuring 8mm wide, 62mm tall and 14mm thick - can store about 13 000 songs, the equivalent of 900 CDs and can play back for 30 hours, it said.
That makes it a better option than Apple Computer Inc's market-leading iPod. That 40-gigabyte device can hold up to 10 000 songs and sells in the US for $499 (about R3 000).
The new player is expected to sell for around 53 000 yen (about R3 000) in Japan, but less than $400 in the US, undercutting Apple's device.
The player goes on sale in Japan on July 10. It will appear in the US market sometime this month and hit Europe in September. - Sapa-AFP and Reuters
