Sony launches Bean walkman to compete with Apple iPod

Sony is taking pre-orders through its website for a new product they would be releasing in the retail market sometime next month. The product is called Bean and it is the latest in the Walkman series from the entertainment giant Sony to compete against the market leader in MP3 digital music player Apple iPod. The product officially comes from the Sony NW-E300 line and has been designed to look like a bean shaped music player.

The company is making available this palm-size device in four jellybean-inspired colors: pink, black, blue, and white. They plan to make available a 512 MB unit for USD 130 and a bigger memory capable model with 1 GB space for USD 180. Market analysts believe that the player is particularly targeting Apple iPod Shuffle player though there is no guarantee that it would be able to match up with the popularity of the flash memory based player from the makers of Macintosh computers.

These new range of players are also compatible with the Sony’s Connect online-music service. This also means that their would be no support for Apple iTunes as the company locks the service to only the owners of their iPod range of digital music players. The popularity of iTunes might also result in not so successful beginning for the Bean music player. However, Sony is adamant that they would be able to overcome the popularity of iPod someday and this player is just one of the many steps taken by the company.

Sony is catching the company in the global market rapidly with its share touching a high of 22 percent compared to Apple’s 36 percent. However, when it comes to the huge market of United States, Apple has practically no competition at the moment. The company has a huge market share of 60 percent in the digital music player market as per the reports of Forrester Research.