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Peripherals - Monday, April 9, 2007

Yahoo/SanDisk Deal Brings Zing Startup In On Coattails

For Yahoo, its announcement of a media player with Sandisk called Sansa is a fairly big deal. But for small, VC-backed Zing it live or die time.

If you missed it, the new WiFi-enabled MP3 player combines Yahoo Music subscriptions, with ZING's mobile technology, packaged in an iPod type device. Zing took on the task of developing the software that allows the device to connect to Yahoo’s Internet services.

ZING is funded through Redpoint Ventures and IDG Ventures as well as angel investors and its CEO was a former Apple exec who is now going head to head with Cupertino.

The timing of the Sansa announcement was unfortunate as Apple announced today that it has sold 100M iPods. While the Sansa won a best of show award in January at CES, we found very few actual product reviewers who will stand by the Sansa. Most note the very high hurdle that the product has to overcome the iPod. Additionally, there are several new services that allow people to listen to music on their cell phones.

The WiFi device will be anywhere from $150 to $300 depending on storage capacity.

Read - Yahoo/Sansa’s Music Player Foray: 100M iPods too Late? (HipMojo)