Rio has gone from the originator of the portable mp3 player to being a marginilized company no-one knows about, and somewhere in there is an interesting tale of how some people seriously screwed up.

In fact we have gone from being the largest digital audio brand to the second largest. That means we sell more players than Creative, Dell, iRiver, Philips, Nike, Sony, Archos, Panasonic and so on. Of course we would like to regain the top spot and that is certainly our long term goal.

With Apple spending almost as much as our entire gross income on marketing for the iPod alone, however, it will take a while. Nonetheless I would not consider taking the brand from a bankrupt company (with all the associated supplier, retailer, financial etc issues that go along with that) and putting it almost immediately into #2 sales ranking would be considered as seriously screwing up. Most of our competitors would love to be doing as "badly" as Rio.

Rob