I want to start this thread by saying that when i was growing up I loved Creative products, if it werent for creative I would never have enjoyed games with sound on my old PC, playing lucasarts games till 1am and laughing out loud at the goofy sounds.
It seems a long time since computers making more than bleep sounds were a technological wonder, but it wasn't all that long ago. One company that really gave all PCs a voice was Creative in the form of its Soundblaster product line. Cut forward to modern day and Creative are in dire straits, their financial peformance is on the way down yet they still produce the usual assortment of decent quality products. I guess the important word here is "usual", Creative have failed to take into account the importance of controlling the media which their end up ultimately on their players and by allowing itself to be steered too much by Microsoft, the firm now faces a very bleak future.
Yet its citing of the Zen patent infridgement for me signals that the Creative team are in a desperate fight to save the company from slipping further. Could Creative really expect to take apple to court over an interface which owes pretty much all of its basis to the Finder's hierachical setup?. Apples quick rebuff has today taken it toll on the company and financially Creative are on their knee's.
I guess the point of this post is to say that at some point Creative stopped innovating in the true sense, the recent HD Mp3 player additions whilst technically superior to the IPOD's lack any true standout features and bear too much of a passing resemblance to Apple's offering. It is a really sad day in Creatives book as it goes to show the cost of not forcing through constant innovations.
The really interesting question would be what is the future for Creative? Should they dump their MP3 business or can they even survive as they are?
It seems a long time since computers making more than bleep sounds were a technological wonder, but it wasn't all that long ago. One company that really gave all PCs a voice was Creative in the form of its Soundblaster product line. Cut forward to modern day and Creative are in dire straits, their financial peformance is on the way down yet they still produce the usual assortment of decent quality products. I guess the important word here is "usual", Creative have failed to take into account the importance of controlling the media which their end up ultimately on their players and by allowing itself to be steered too much by Microsoft, the firm now faces a very bleak future.
Yet its citing of the Zen patent infridgement for me signals that the Creative team are in a desperate fight to save the company from slipping further. Could Creative really expect to take apple to court over an interface which owes pretty much all of its basis to the Finder's hierachical setup?. Apples quick rebuff has today taken it toll on the company and financially Creative are on their knee's.
I guess the point of this post is to say that at some point Creative stopped innovating in the true sense, the recent HD Mp3 player additions whilst technically superior to the IPOD's lack any true standout features and bear too much of a passing resemblance to Apple's offering. It is a really sad day in Creatives book as it goes to show the cost of not forcing through constant innovations.
The really interesting question would be what is the future for Creative? Should they dump their MP3 business or can they even survive as they are?
