What happened to CREATIVE Technology ?

[hairylee]

if steve jobs is born in singapore, he will be a nobody, some mexican will be woo to come and replace him.

If Steve Job was born in Singapore he would have been a Singtel Retailer working his butts off.

 

[HellBoy]

i bot my first mp3 player from creative back in 2002 the detachable 256MB thumb drive with scrolling text like pager Love it!

 

[Cruxx]

If Steve Job was born in Singapore he would have been a Singtel Retailer working his butts off.

More likely, he would be playing guitar at void decks. He was a college dropout. I doubt he could get a job in Singapore with his lack of paper qualifications.

 

[Cestbon]

When computer build in with sound chip. Creative future is gone.
Creative should think of new product when sound chip start to build in in every MB.

 

[donkey_kong]

I think in general, they spent alot of money on the zii chip business, trying to cater to the OEM which they did not have much success. However, the recent Jaguar3 tablets look really promising and they said that one big Taiwanese company has already bought the product.
http://images.fuckwarezone.com/upload/files/2011/09/168ffcf7cc.jpg
http://www.fuckwarezone.com.sg/feature-creative-renews-tablet-strategy-jaguar3-reference-devices

In terms of innovation, i guess they do have some innovation over the years. Like most of their sound cards are now external USB ones, their speakers are all wireless bluetooth ones and their webcams are the high end 1080p quality. I think where they failed is the marketing part ... no one seems to know what new products they have. Visited their website the other day and was shocked to see the zii eagle ... some ugly looking box with 668 shaw movies in HD lol, you guys should take a look: http://sg.creative.com/

 

[singveld]

That is how creative mp3 players defeated by apple.By outspending everyone else in advertisement.

One noticeable aspect of Apple's iPod advertising were the sheer number of iPod ads on television and in billboards. At the time, it seemed as if Apple was just being particularly aggressive with their adverting, but Steve Jobs' Biography revealed that those ubiquitous iPod ads were actually being subsidized by the Mac.
"I had this crazy idea that we could sell just as many Macs by advertising the iPod. In addition, the iPod would position Apple as evoking innovation and youth. So I moved $75 million of advertising money to the iPod, even though the category didn't justify one hundreth of that. That meant that we completely dominated the market for music players. We outspent everybody by a factor of about a hundred."

So, the so-called iPod "halo" effect resulting in more Mac sales was something that Jobs relied upon. In fact, it allowed them to outspend all their competitors for a large factor which further cemented the iPod's lead in the MP3 market.

 

[virtualchick]

Okay from reading the above replies there seems to be a few issues:

1 New products and innovation

2 Marketing

3 Style or coolness

4 Functionality of the product

Creative can learn from this discussion. First they need to go back and look at their existing products and maybe make it more stylish. Streamline it. Do away with unnecessary functions. This adds cost and confusion. Do a survey on what is needed and appreciated - it may surprise.

Redesign and make them more stylish, streamlined, simple. Google is successful because of lack of clutter.

Then spend more on global marketing and advertising. Come out with one product at one time. Forget Soundblaster. Focus on something new. Make it current. Give it some time, say a few months to a year but it might not succeed - not all of Apple's products do but when they don't they simply come out with something else new to replace it.

Have a core team think up new products. This need not be out of the blue. Just as Apple innovated on Creative's MP3, Creative can also scan products by less well known companies in the market and innovate on it. Of course in time this will give rise to issues, which Apple is fighting it out with Samsung right now. Which is hard. I think last time the original apple pc came out and IBM subsequently came out with something similar. So they really have no case. The product is similar but not the same. This is competition and differentiation. But that is why Apple has the issues it does with Samsung, just like it should have had with IBM but somehow nothing happened then.

Learn from Apple's business model. They must be doing something right. They come out with a new product every few months, and even if it is less than successful there is a new product out in a few months to keep it in the public eye. The successful products will become income streams and eventually new improved versions can be created.

 

[Cruxx]

How creative is a name like "creative"?

 

[TheFootballer]

How creative tech failed or allowed to fail is beyond me... Its that 1 company that could have REALLY put Singapore on the Map other then SIA putting singaporeans all over the map.
That Sim guy is really filial and got pretty good Local media coverage..

Many years ago.. someone in Sammyboy revealed he was arrested by ISD b4... dunno if true or not.. he shift his warehouse to new malaysia port b4..

I still support his company by buying Creative Computer hifi.. invented by Sim himself.
Simkie.. nxt life dun be born in Sinkie.. you could have made it really big elsewhere..

 

[sense]

CREATIVE Technology on the watch list of the Singapore Exchange? Even the hint of such a possibility would have once been unthinkable.
:
:

Tough.

http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=C76.SI&t=my&l=on&z=l&q=c&p=m200&a=&c=

 

[Fook Seng]

Is Creative still receiving loyalty from Apple when they gave up the tussle with iPod?

 

[moolightaffairs]

i think he got too near with malaysian, that cost his downfall. :P remember saw in the news that he setup some R&D facilities in Malaysia and praise them. >:(
sinkapoorean not creative, yes i agree. but efficient and effective people.
mudlandsian, not even efficient and effective. let along creative. only por lumpar and back stabbing other able staff. also good at bringing in own kampong people. this is happening everyday in local corporate scene and even in pap.
i think a lot of the samsters here, on hind sight know what caused the downfall for creative. but working too close with mudlandsian really seal the deal of downfall.

 

[dredd]

What happened? Nothing really except for the fact that there is no cool factor in all of CT's products. If you are in the business of attracting the young, for heaven's sakes, be cool! Spend money getting athletes, sports stars to endorse your product, create an environment of coolness so people can identify the brand.

 

[Scrooball (clone)]

Which gong cheebye bought Creative share at $25?!

 

[Confuseous]

What happened? Nothing really except for the fact that there is no cool factor in all of CT's products. If you are in the business of attracting the young, for heaven's sakes, be cool! Spend money getting athletes, sports stars to endorse your product, create an environment of coolness so people can identify the brand.

That is actually the key issue. They make "cool" products but their wardrobe does not match what they are selling.
There was this product (can't remember the name) they used an out of date band or something in their "branding" - it failed big time but in fact, tests after tests by consumer magazines in the US showed that it was quite a much better product.

 

[virus]

they seems to position themselves between low end Fii0 and higher end sony products when it comes to portable amplifier.

sames for headphones. but CS is still good.

 

[Sideswipe]

Creative has the best low to middle end speakers: the T12 and T20.

 

[AxisOfEvil]

when taiwan motherboard makers decide to add a cheap free soundcard on every motherboard.

blame taiwan

You should blame Creative for their own stupidity! This is a free market, any competitor can invent a good enough and cheaper alternative! I for one will not buy anything Creative because they are anti-Open Source and their products does not work well with LINUX! Nuff said!

 

[blackmondy]

Creative many years back bought over a professional graphics card company known as 3DLabs and was also involved in some 3D animation production.

Needless to say both were flops.

 

[DavidAlaba]

No sound no picture.