Creative has been trying hard to take away some of Apple’s market share in the portable MP3 player market. In the past it has focused on losing strategies like expanded marketing ignoring the fact that its bloated product line is a serious problem in and of itself.
Now, Creative has apparently hit upon yet another winning strategy — using firmware upgrades to disable features of its players. According to a number of recent reports, Creative released firmware “upgrades” for two of its models that disabled the FM recording ability of the players. Beta News writes,
Specifically, the firmware change affects the company’s Zen MicroPhoto and Zen Vision:M players. In the release notes, Creative gives no reasoning for the change other than saying “this firmware removes your player’s FM recording feature.”
Creative pretty much refused all comment on the changes, but it is almost certainly an attempt to appease rights holders who have complained that FM recording features hurt CD sales.
This new direction should finally help Creative overtake Apple. Perhaps at some point Creative might want to add an electric shock feature that temporarily stuns users who try to play any file on their player not explicitly authorized by the RIAA. That should help Creative leave Apple in its dust.
Source:
Creative Zen Players Lose FM Recording. Ed Oswald, BetaNews, October 17, 2006.