Rio Brand Closes Doors

Castar writes "In a press release today, D&M Holdings announced the end of the Rio brand. Rio had a troubled history, but were responsible for the first mass-market MP3 players as well as more recent popular players such as the Rio Karma. This closing follows the sale of Rio's IP to Sigmatel, maker of chipsets for many audio players, including the iPod Shuffle." From the release: "The company's decision to exit the Rio business followed a determination that the mass-market portable digital audio player market was not a strong enough strategic fit with the company's core and profitable premium consumer electronics brands to warrant additional investment in the category. The original goal of strategic advantage with wholly-owned and branded portable client devices was reconsidered in the context of the costs required to effectively scale and compete in this sector, where competition has grown intense. D&M Holdings will now focus all its resources on the core Premium AV business and advanced content server products."

AKA

[hexghost]

We got pwn3d by the iPod.

In other words...

[Gothic_Walrus]

"The company's decision to exit the Rio business followed a determination that the mass-market portable digital audio player market was not a strong enough strategic fit with the company's core and profitable premium consumer electronics brands to warrant additional investment in the category."

Translation: We're sick of getting our ass kicked by the iPod. We give up.

Things may have been different

[amrust]

if they could have just got that "Riocasting" thing off the ground.

Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

But what does this have to do with Duran Duran?

Theme song for Rio's Funeral

[cryptochrome]

It's name was Rio and it looked good in your hand
Until the iPod made it seem totally bland
The loss of profit was too much for it to stand
Oh Rio, Rio Apple killed the Rio Brand

Re:Thanks a lot Apple

[robertjw]

You do know you have to charge the Shuffle, right?

Really? You don't just warranty it when it quits working???

Re:Disposable computing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Best. Shootdown. Ever.

Only on Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

... would a guy saying "two circus tents worth of coal" get taken seriously and then subsequently told off by the power of hard circus-tent maths.

Re:One fan sorry to see them go

[Reaperducer]

I rip it myself because iTunes (and others) doesn't provide sufficient quality.

Yeah. Lossless sucks. Dumbass
Now why don't you go back to cobbling together your PIII in the basement. The adults are talking now.

Re:If I had a $1 for every person who wanted Ogg .

[VoidWraith]

Obviously if you had $1 for every person who wanted Ogg you'd go broke. They were getting over $200 from the people who wanted Ogg, and still went broke.