Tag: Creative Labs

This Should Help Creative Finally Beat Apple’s iPod

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.

Creative Sues Apple Over iPod Interface

As I mentioned the other day, Creative Labs’ $100 marketing effort to overtake Apple has led to Apple controlling 75 to 80 percent of the portable MP3 player market, while Creative posted a $114 million loss in its recent 3rd quarter financial results.

So what do you do if you’re in Creative Labs’ shoes? Of course, the only recourse is to sue Apple for patent infringement.

According to an article at MacNN,

The patent is for an invention that “provides an efficient user interface for a small portable music player. The invention is suitable for use with a limited display area and small number of controls to allow a user to efficiently and intuitively navigate among, and select, songs to be played. By using the invention, very large numbers of songs can be easily accessed and played,” according to the filing at the US Patent office.

Specifically, it describes overlapping categories that would allow for selection of the same song via different categories and for multiple functions assigned to the same device button or control. The patent also calls for organization based on metadata associated with each track as well as internet-based sources such as CDDB as well as the now popular playlists for organizing music.

“The creation of playlists is one technique to organize the playing of songs. A set of songs can be included in a playlist which is given a name and stored. When the playlist is accessed, the set of songs can be played utilizing various formats such as sequential play or shuffle,” the company wrote its patent filing.

Given how Creative Labs has pretty much ripped off the iPod look-and-feel, using over something as basic as overlapping metadata categories and playlists is beyond absurd. And it will probably prove as effective as Creative’s marketing campaign to unseat the iPod.

Source:

Creative sues Apple over iPod interface. MacNN, May 15, 2006.

How’s That Marketing War Going for Creative?

Back in 2004, Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo said that not only was his company going to overtake the Apple’s popular iPod, but that it would do it by out-marketing Apple,

I’m planning to spend some serious money – I intend to out-market everyone. The MP3 war has started and I am the one who has declared war.

At the time Hoo said that, Apple had 42 percent of the market in portable MP3 players. After making MP3 players the company’s focus and spending upwards of $100 million in that marketing campaign where does Creative stand today?

Apple has about 75 to 80 percent of the MP3 player market. In the 3rd quarter of 2006, Apple sold about $1.7 billion worth of iPods. During the same period, Creative’s total revenues (which includes products other than MP3 players), was a mere $228 million and the company posted a $114 million loss.

Instead of focusing on marketing, Creative should have thought about building a better product — or perhaps less of them. At one point, Creative had upwards of 25 different models of MP3 players for sale. Moreover, most of them suffered from feature creep and were complicated as hell for consumers compared to the relatively simplified features and UI of the iPod.

Sources:

Creative declares ‘war’ on Apple’s iPod. Tony Smith, The Register, November 18, 2004.

Creative’s Loss Surges on MP3 Woes. Ed Oswald, BetaNews, May 3, 2006.

iPod sales drive Apple earnings. iPod sales drive Apple Earnings. Tom Krazit, CNET, April 19, 2006.