“Singapore-based Creative Technology, the maker of Nomad and Zen digital music players, suffered losses for the third quarter running,” Channel NewsAsia reports.
“Creative reported a net loss of US$21 million in its fiscal first quarter ended September 30,” CNA reports. “First-quarter sales fell 14 percent to US$241.5 million, as Creative struggles in a competitive market dominated by Apple Computer’s iPod.”
CNA reports, “Creative expects a payment profit of US$82 million in the fiscal second quarter on a US$100 million licensing payment from Apple as part of a settlement.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
Creative does Apple’s dirty work by immediately attacking Microsoft’s Zune – September 17, 2006
Creative Tech: we will pursue all MP3 player- and cellphone-makers that infringe on ‘Zen patent’ – August 30, 2006
Apple investors cheer as Jobs wins again by getting Creative – August 24, 2006
Apple and Creative settle – the bigger picture – August 24, 2006
Analyst: Apple’s relatively small settlement with Creative removes threat hanging over iPod – August 23, 2006
Apple & Creative settle: Apple pays $100M for ‘Zen’ patent, Creative plans iPod accessories – August 23, 2006
fight is not against creative anymore, creative is pretty much dead – the fight will be against ZUNE – because Microsoft will pour money into it just like it does for Xbox.
Sounds like a great time to buy a Zen Vision:M 60Gb.
Apple’s great but… iPod won’t play enough formats. And I don’t really feel like buying all my content from iTunes. I’ve held out for as long as I can waiting for the new iPod.
Poor wee things
Now everyone (except for iPod buyers) is waiting for the Zune to come out before deciding what (non-iPod) MP3 player to purchase.
Creative, on the front lines of the “war” between iTMS vs. “Plays for Sure” takes a round of “friendly fire” from Microsoft right in the back. It doesn’t look good for them, they will probably die a slow agonizing death.
me said: “iPod won’t play enough formats. And I don’t really feel like buying all my content from iTunes”
i say, are you a moron?
BUY AN IPOD DAMMIT
Expect Creative to do some creative patent squatting when Mr. Softie releases the Zune – the hierarchical navigation system for Zune may be in violation of Creative’s patent, which was the basis of Apple’s cash settlement last summer.
Before someone asks why I think iPod doesn’t play enough formats… if it doesn’t play divx/xvid it’s just not worth geek money. It’s a Windows world and they use xvid (and unfortunately WMV)
It’s only a Windows world if you let it be a Windows world.
me sez “And I don’t really feel like buying all my content from iTunes.”
I have about 2600 songs in my iPod. I’ve never bought anything from iTS.
No body is worry or compiting against apple’s iPod. My be Microsoft is telling that crap just as a marketing, but get real, no body can compete vs iPod, even if they put money on lost as the Xbox. Xbox is competing against similar tech consoles and software, iPod has no similarities in hardware and software.
Every time that some body says “iPod Killer” every one turns head arround, that is marketing, not inovation or competition.
I’d rather Creative stay alive than M$’s Zune. I hope some of next quarter’s profits are used to sue M$.
I just can’t bring myself to buy MP3s or movies/TV in download form. Therefore all my video content is in xvid or MP4 etc. So why buy an iPod that won’t play all those torrents without re-encoding? Believe me, I would love to buy a Divx iPod.
ME thinks windoze is a bore.
I believe there are tools that allow things like xVid to work with quickltime, 3ivx for one. Visual Hub for another. Should be simple to make them work on an iPod.
@me
So you’re saying since you refuse to buy music, tv shows, and movies through legal online sources you’d rather just illegally download torrents of pirated content?
In other words, you’re disappointed that the iPod will not natively play your pirated content. Right…
Well if you’re not willing to buy content in download form, buy the CD! Buy the DVD! Then you can use iTunes to rip the CD and a number of other free programs to rip the DVD into a format the iPod can play.
Apple is not in the business of catering to pirates.
BOO FRICKETY HOO!
I’m starting to think that the company’s name really is Beleaguered Creative.
I’ve got more than 5,000 tunes in my iTunes library — and I’ve bought exactly 103 from the iTunes Store. The rest are rips from my LPs and CDs, or legal MP3 downloads. There may be another 200-300 tracks that have been ripped from CDs belonging to a friend (which may or may not be illegal, but I’ll take my chances…)
Saying iPod can’t play enough music formats is like saying my toaster doesn’t make enough kinds of bread…
Much as I value competition, I can’t wait till the iPod haters are left with no alternative. Then they might finally be forced to “get it”. Then again, they’ll probably resort to humming to themselves.
Beleaguered Creative Technology continues to circulate the bowl, clinging like a desperate rat to a brown log of a corporate welfare check.
How long will the rat continue to survive?
Place your bets now.
Creative will stay alive, because they are now making iPod accessories. They will be more like Belkin and Griffin Tech.
I have 6,438,943 songs on my Mac and have purchased 6,539,204 songs from iTunes. So there!
MW: 6,539,204, how do they do that?????
the fight will be against ZUNE – because Microsoft will pour money into it just like it does for Xbox.
We should hope MS pours an ocean of money into Zune.
IMO MS should give each and every licensed Windows user a free Zune & 100 free MSN songs.
If they’re going to lose money & prop up markets, at least do it right.
Just now I did something I should have done a long time ago. I unsubscribed from the MacDailyNews RSS feed. Why waste time with irrelevant stories about how poorly Apple’s competition is doing? Ten years ago Mac users hung on every bit of news to see if Apple would survive, but Apple took its one foot out of the grave a long time ago. Now all I care about regarding Apple is actually using their products.
I can keep up with Apple with two sites: the Mac Observer (general Mac news written by mature adults) and AccelerateYourMac (for slightly more techy stuff that doesn’t hit the general news sites). Reading and responding to idiotic (not to mention racist, homophobic, sexist, etc.) comments on MDN is a total waste of anyone’s time. I hope this is my last.
I feel liberated.
Let’s see. what formats won’t an iPod play?
WMV – plays for sure? NOPE – thank the flying spaghetti monster for that!
Can I load my store bought CDs? Yep!
Can I load – after conversion through some third party applications any other music formats? Yep!
Can I (by using FairGame) “save” my iTunes “protected” music any where else? Yep!
Can I burn cd’s of all of my iTunes music – both CD and MP3 – so I can play it in my car or a friend’s car? Yep!
Can I use a plethora of accesories and goodies with my iPod? Yep!
Can I “create” other goodies using the iPod to USB connector for really innovative “sleep” at night with my iPod playing? Yep!
Why are businesses and colleges (MDN) and uiversities and schools buying or recommening to buy iPods over all other units? Because they work and they are the best.
Zune – which doesn’t even allow generic uploading – all must be converted to their proprietary DRM scheme – Hmmmm!
Zune – bland box that is an also ran. Yep – a real wiener, er winner! If M$ offered me one – even 100,000,000 – for free – I would still buy an iPod.
I think that kind of says how I feel.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />