“War has been declared. Not the conventional type with the troops, tanks, and smart bombs, but an entertainment war for the $3 billion global music player business. Creative Technology has decided to move in against the giant Apple in an attempt to capture a 40% market share for MP3 music players. In the three years since the iPod’s launch, it has become the worldwide player of choice, claiming about 85% of the market, so to call this an uphill fight is something of an understatement,” Kelvin Taylor writes for The Motley Fool.
“Creative’s plan of attack is a two-pronged approach. First, launch a wave of spending to the tune of $100 million to market its players such as the Zen Touch. This is very iPod-like in appearance, and has a 24-hour battery life, twice that of the best iPod. One hang-up for the Zen Touch — other than there isn’t any camouflage style available — is that tracks from iTunes won’t easily transfer. The files have to be converted into MP3 files first, but tunes from RealNetworks’ music store, Harmony, can be easily transferred to the player,” Taylor writes.
Taylor continues, “Secondly, the company has recruited an ally to help gain some advantage: Microsoft. Creative was one of the first hardware manufacturers to release a combination video/music player based on Microsoft’s Portable Media Center concept earlier this year. And while so far reaction hasn’t been great, many consider portable video players to be an important product category going forward.”
“If recent history is any guide, the battle to win over iPod users has yet to be very successful. Various interlopers have taken on Apple with lower price points before, and failed largely because the iPod design is the most compelling. The big A has so far eschewed flash-based players, but rumors are swirling that that might change in 2005 at the MacWorld trade show in January. Speculation has leaked that CEO Steve Jobs will unveil an inexpensive Apple-branded flash music player,” Taylor writes. “Ultimately the functionality, features, and price will determine tomorrow’s must-have device. Having those three weapons ready to launch will be key if Creative wants to win the war for digital music players.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Creative wants to capture a 40% market share for MP3 music players? It’s good to have goals, we guess. Unfortunately, unrealistic goals result in rapidly losing motivation. Creative faces an uphill fight all right, too bad for them that “hill” is named “Everest” and already has a pirate flag flying atop its peak.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Forbes writer tries to sell Creative Zen Touch to ‘Apple iPod Resisters’ – December 20, 2004
<clears throat>
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Good luck to them though. Competition is always good.
BuyMusic.bomb
WalMartmusic.bomb
VirginMusic.bomb
Napster.bomb
Real.bomb
Rhapsody.bomb
MSNMusic.bomb
WiindowsMediaMusic.bomb
SonyMusic.bomb
Background-Funeral Music of choice
April is rather early this year…
Oh, what a good laugh…
$100 million? Good money after bad… The only ones that will benefit are the marketing folks that give their piece of this large pie.
Is Creative private or public?
Well, considering Creative recently sold off their profitable software business to focus on portable digital music players, I guess it’s not entirely apt to say: “Creative is Toast”
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..but I predict they soon will be, regardless.
Well, I think Creative is spending its $100 Million quite well. In addition to the Betsy Schiffman article referenced earlier on MDN, I have now heard two tech features on the radio extolling the virtues of the Rio 5 gB player, whatever it is called. The reports were very positive (without dissing the iPod), hit all the high points, and were obviously written mainly by Creative Marketing.
I am confident that Apple has some promotional material in the wings for the iPod (isn’t there some sort of event coming up in the New Year?), but they do need to keep their nose to the Marketing grindstone to make sure that others get no traction.
As has been mentioned before in this forum, it wouldn’t hurt for some real information ads from Apple instead of feel good pap.
Mike
Wow, can we get off this “We sell the most now, so we always will sell the most” kick? It seems to be the only way people look at this. iPod is hip now…It won’t be forever. A lot of my friends have alternative players and they like them! Once another company finds a good design, they’ll slash the price and suddenly Apple’s got problems…
Apple can’t ride the wings of the iPod for the rest of its life. IBM built the PC business and it just sold it off… Anything can happen.
Wow.. Creative is smart… Since Apple doesn’t have a flash player they can talk about units all they want..
Let’s talk about revenues..
Let’s talk about profits…
When Apple has a flash player that’s cheap, we’ll discuss the units.. until then.. let’s just say thing..
HD marketshare 92%..
Creative won’t get anywhere near that unless it first takes a few of the Microsoft Family members out.. Rio.. Virgin.. help me out here guys…who else is there? Samsung!?
Yeah.. the slash and burn policy where Creative eats 100 million in price cuts does wonders..
Isn’t that to prop up demand? Well.. of course it is…
Or as Michael Dell would say “provide value”
Wow.. their spending to keep up with Apple is ingenious..
Shareholders get on those phones.. sell sell sell…
Well, considering Creative recently sold off their profitable software business to focus on portable digital music players, I guess it’s not entirely apt to say: “Creative is Toast”
..but I predict they soon will be, regardless.
—
confused.. I think you’re referring to Roxio/Napster..(?)
Anon.. if you think Apple is resting on its laurels you haven’t been.. er.. conscious for the past six months.. 200 million songs sold.. and with a sweet HP deal.. selling about a million iPods a month..
HINT: the company that is slashing prices is the one not selling..
Not only is the iPod hip.. with the iTunes/iPod marriage.. regarding AAC.. Apple’s also, like it or not, locking in customers.. so.. in a way there is a certain customer 2, 3 years down the line..
How Monopolistic of them
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Like I said.. SJ is the benevolent dictator
and let’s not forget cokemusic.bomb.
iPod iPod iPod iPod – all we ever hear is iPod and arrogant 14 year olds extolling its supremacy. Grow up and move on MDN.
Creative is a nobody, when your buying $1000 of dollars of music you want the most stylish and best iPod availalbe.
Quality matters here.
I saw a news reporter use a iPod and a Griffen mike to record a statement on TV the other day.
iPods rule not only the music, but the “tape recorder” area of the market as well.
What is important to me is that the iPod makes the world appreciate that its style, quality and useability is reflective of Apple computers. I want Apple to sell millions more and to have millions more for R&D to give me yet more sublime tools that can make life a pleasure rather than a pain… and to stay at least a generation ahead of Windows.
iPod is crap, can’t play mp3s and AACs gaplessly, trash distorting “equaliser”, iPod photo can’t download pictures directly from cameras. Masses are asses to buy this crap.
>MDN wrote: It’s good to have goals, we guess.
You’re not sure??? Why not just add a “uh-huh-huh-huh” at the end of your commentary to make it mildly amusing in the tradition of Beavis & Butthead?
—
I swear – judging MDN posts and reporting – the US isn’t a decomracy with free enterprise. Apple is God and everyone should bow before it. Bleh! Microsoft is already playing that game and no one has a love affair for them.
>MDN wrote: It’s good to have goals, we guess.
You’re not sure??? Why not just add a “uh-huh-huh-huh” at the end of your commentary to make it mildly amusing in the tradition of Beavis & Butthead?
—
I swear – judging MDN posts and reporting – the US isn’t a decomracy with free enterprise. Apple is God and everyone should bow before it. Bleh! Microsoft is already playing that game and no one has a love affair for them.
What a way to start off the day….laughing.
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I nearly peed!
drip…..dribble
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Rio entered the market early but they lost it all because they refused to sell anything useful. They sold 256 mb players for $300 then Apple came along and wiped the floor with them with 5gb for same price, they never recovered.
Every other week another company sends out press releases announcing their “Ipod Killer Arrives!” product or their “iMac killer is Here!” product and they get press and then they go under.
A war that can’t be won. When a company starts to impede on Apple’s market share, all Apple has to do is offer product price drops and/or start licensing Fairplay. Simple, easy, marketing 101. End of war.
In other news today Crative’s Iranian branch has declared Jihad on the Apple iPod. When asked what their strategy would be used to combat the popular iPod, the Iran branch marketing manager, Saleem Al-Ahmeddi, said, “Allah the great will deliver the devil iPod into our hands and we will smite it with our mighty scimitar. Death to Apple, death to the iPod, and death to the cute and functional infidel MP3 player!” When pressed for more details Al-Ahmeddi abruptly ended the interview with a high-pitched scream reminicent of Howard Dean in Iowa…
Deus Ex Machina — That was stupid.
Saleem Al-Ahmeddi — ditto.
The only good thing about this article is “…giant Apple…” aside from it’s comic value.
And so we are again tirelessly lectured by the left about the supposedly moronic George W. Bush. Of course, that’s how it goes with the intellectually insecure (a.k.a. liberals). In their world, there is no such thing as simple disagreement. No, if you don’t see it THEIR way, if you DARE not see it their way, then surely, SURELY(!), the one and only explanation is that you must be some subhuman form of inbred knuckle-dragging pond scum. (And why exactly do all of these smart liberals continue to behave as if arrogant and insulting behavior should somehow win them favor? This sort of brilliance eludes my limited capacity of understanding, especially when it is applied ever more feverishly even AFTER it has proven to be a miserable failure.)
Their favorite recurring bit of fallaciousness of course is that Bush has, unlike the rest of us, occasionally committed the unforgivable and oh-so revealing faux pas. (And by the way, a number of so-called “Bushisms” are urban myth fabrications – like Jimmy Hoffa being a closet transvestite – never happened. That’s a shocker! Liberals making shit up because it suits their agenda? Surely not! Ahem, can you say “Michael Moore”?) Because goodness knows that the rest of us have reporters following us around constantly recording our every word while the weight of the world rests on our shoulders, and goodness knows that we never, ever, commit such grievous errors of the moment. (Remember when Al Gore called a “mammogram” a “sonogram”? No, you probably don’t, because such mistakes are never, NEVER, played up like they are when Republicans commit them.)
But a question perhaps for those enlightened ones of the left: In that your best and your brightest ran your recent bid for President, and in that they proceeded to woo the American people with such stunts as putting Michael Moore in the VIP section next to Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention; taking Al Sharpton seriously; embracing the now-famous Hollywood hate-fest in all its classless and clueless glory as being emblematic of “the heart of America”; and making the case that you would be a better protector of these United States because, A) You served 4 months in Vietnam, and, B) You want U.S. foreign policy to be submitted to the world’s approval (that famous “Global Test”), have you considered at all, just for a moment, that indeed stupidity is not entirely confined to the occasional faux pas, but may perhaps take on more substantive forms?
Merry Christmas!
Rick O’Shay – please just take your tired old ‘liberals are stupid and evil’ crap and go away. Yes, Bush won the election. So we’ve got 4 more years of Conservative garbage – sacrifice anything for a dollar and paint anyone who disagrees as stupid or unpatriotic. Just state facts if you want to, but do it someplace else – not in an iPod discussion.
Get a life … open your eyes .. get your brain out of idle
Sheesh …
Benn
iPod iPod iPod iPod – all we ever hear is iPod and arrogant 14 year olds extolling its supremacy. Grow up and move on MDN.
If you don’t feel like trolling in the iPod article comment section, there’s a nice selection of non-iPod news stories to choose from. Or did you not look at the whole menu before you ordered your dinner?
Reality Check
iPod is crap
1. Lame opinion.
can’t play mp3s and AACs gaplessly
2. Maybe not, bothers some people more than others. Does not make said player “crap.”
trash distorting “equaliser”
3. Honestly never used the iPod equalizer. I think the way it plays music natively without equalizer is good enough. Sorry it’s not for you.
iPod photo can’t download pictures directly from cameras.
4. Admitted flaw in the iPod photo design that may or may not be remedied in future redesigns. Clearly the iPod photo has room for improvement, but it’s hardly crap now. Just may not suit your needs.
Masses are asses to buy this crap.
5. Reality check, did someone crap in your Cheerios this morning? Why the grouchy attitude? You’re more than welcome to not like and not purchase the iPod, but for those that do, keep your insults to yourself.