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Prognoses not boding well for Creative
comment: 0 | Tuesday, August 09 (2005) 11:23AM | Posted by Robert Sinke
Despite the huge investments Creative has been putting through during the last couple of months, market analysers expect the company to end up in the red figures in Q4 (ended June, net loss of some 7.2M USD). Anyone got some shares left?

"'[...]Creative also suffered in the September quarter as Apple Computer Inc cut prices by up to 20 per cent to clear excess stockpiles, and analysts said Creative's fundamentals are likely to worsen.

"Competition is intense and going to get more cut-throat. ASPs (average selling prices) and margins continue to decline and Creative faces large losses in the near to medium term,' said CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets analyst Atul Goyal.


[...]Creative chief executive Sim Wong Hoo pledged US$ 100 million in worldwide marketing spending this year and promised to out-market its rivals, but analysts are sceptical that Creative has the resources to effectively compete against the bigger players."

Creative has to present its quarterly figures next Thursday. So guess we'll have to wait for that before setting any buildings on fire.

LINK
Comments

Robert Sinke

Comments: 1221
Aug 09 (2005) 11:25AM  

Name of the original picture can be found HERE. .



Leth
Location: China
Guest
Aug 09 (2005) 11:36AM  

*sigh* And I love my Zen Micro.



Radical Conformist

Comments: 148
Aug 09 (2005) 12:04PM  

No! It is a symbol of oppression! DESTROY IT!





Don
Location: China
Guest
Aug 09 (2005) 12:21PM  

Hahahahaha, fight!



graybandit

Guest
Aug 09 (2005) 12:28PM  

I have a zen xtra that I absolutely love. I got it on a deep sale, so thanks Creative I guess.

However, while losses are here for now, I doubt a company with as much reach and product as Creative will belly-up and die. They just need to trim their product line and focus on doing fewer things much better. Their R&D is going nuts, which can be good, but churning out dozens of players makes it hard to market, no?

Glad that if nothing else, the Neeon is getting some press time. That alone is a hopeful sign that they can attract customers.



storm
Location: China
Guest
Aug 09 (2005) 12:35PM  

Creative can't beat Apple unless they put the same amount of effort into marketing their product just liek Apple does.



Michael
Location: New York City
Comments: 2802
Aug 09 (2005) 12:48PM  

I personally haven't seen a commerical and/or ad for a Creative player yet. They need to exploit their zen-ness and make some cool looking commericals. That would be worth the investment.



Dominic
Location: Ireland.
Comments: 2408
Aug 09 (2005) 12:55PM  

yes, course the most powerful medium is word of mouth, but that hasn't worked tooooo well for creative.
They make some very good DAP's so its a real pity they are in trouble. STOP MAKING SO MANY DAP's THOUGH,thats a big problem, they release way too many that none have any time to build up a reputation among the norms AKA the uninformed.




ZaphodB
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
Comments: 129
Aug 09 (2005) 01:06PM  

Exploding Dog! Huzzah!



Anonymous
Location: China
Guest
Aug 09 (2005) 01:10PM  

Bye bye, "Creative". I might have bought one or more of your players if you'd simply made them with UMS-compliancy.



chicubs

Comments: 915
Aug 09 (2005) 01:18PM  

come on creative, dont give up!



mmmpopfanatic

Comments: 17
Aug 09 (2005) 01:57PM  

I am a Zen Micro owner, and I could never picture myself buying any IPod product. The problem with Creative or any other non-Apple DAP trying to get a share of the market is that Apple is too much of a monopoly to compete with. They've got money to burn, so OF COURSE they can spend it on excessive (if not annoying) advertising to boost their sales further.



musicman

Comments: 338
Aug 09 (2005) 02:48PM  

Yeah, come on Creative, get super-successful so that all the 'different, informed people' can start hating you for having a big market share.....



musicman

Comments: 338
Aug 09 (2005) 03:17PM  

Sorry, should of added a 'lol' at the end of my last comment, this stuff makes me piss myself with laughter



Dominic
Location: Ireland.
Comments: 2408
Aug 09 (2005) 04:29PM  

wow thats one strange sense of humour, but whatever makes u chuckle dude



SowndOfDeth

Comments: 417
Aug 09 (2005) 06:00PM  

It used to be easy rooting for the 'winner' .... then it became fashionable to be supporting the underdog.
Musicman is singlehandedly trying changing history again



Morwan

Comments: 70
Aug 09 (2005) 06:37PM  

Creative's losing because they're not investing in the software department. Their GUI sucks, Mediasource sucks, and their firmware sucks. They make solid hardware, but they can't back it up with decent software.



billy gun
Location: China
Guest
Aug 09 (2005) 06:52PM  

I had a Nomad jukebox, than I got the Nomad jukebox 3 (that was stolen) and now I have a Ipod with 60gb.

first, the reasons I bought the Ipod insted of a creative player:
- I love to see Album Art;
- Artists under genre viewing;
- 60gb (mabe the zen vizion will come with album art view, but It's only 30gb.
- possibility of adding a IR or RF remote

Here are some thing that I need to say about creative players:
- The sound is much, much, much better. When you let someone listen to it they use to say: "wow! what a nice sound!", this even if the file is a 64kbps wma file.
- I'ts very easy to queue songs, albums, add new songs, delete from queue, change order, change the way you play songs (repeate, rendom...).
You Can't change order, delete songs from the "now playing" with the Ipod, and for changing the playing way (repeate, shufle...) you have to press: menu, menu, menu, menu, settings, repeat... you do not need to do that all on the creative player.
- Creative softwere is much better than Itunes, I hate Itunes
- It plays WMA, Ok it's not a ogg player, but almost every player get WMA, dvd players does, car systems does, so what will you do with your acc files? ony Ipod.
- Sorry, but I do not whant to offend anyone here, but, "Ipod is too gay!" Confused

Hoo, I have a question here... how can so many americans buy the Ipod Shufle? It is big, large, no screen, expensive no FM and no voice recorder.

Creative MuVo does much better.



Anonymous
Location: China
Guest
Aug 09 (2005) 11:06PM  

I use iTunes to manage my music files, and then drag them to my personally organized folders on my iAudio G3. I love how it works. How is Creative's software better? I've never seen it before, but I have no reason to question what Morwan said. Apple makes iTunes, and they have plenty of experience making spectacular software. Who makes Creative's "Mediasource" and how would it be better than iTunes?


608zz



CycloneRunner

Comments: 4
Aug 10 (2005) 05:34AM  

Creative has their hands in a lot more than just MP3. Has anybody seen the new X-Fi sound cards they are about to release? Interesting tech that could really drive the company if its as good as some of the reviewers (Tom's Hardware, ExtremeTech, IGN) have said. Perhaps they could drop the chip in some of their own mp3 players <speculation>...



Dominic
Location: Ireland.
Comments: 2408
Aug 10 (2005) 05:57AM  

i think musicman once said that apple actually didnt make itunes, correct me if i'm wrong dude.



musicman

Comments: 338
Aug 10 (2005) 09:45AM  

iTunes was created from code that was obtained when Apple purchased Soundjam from the developers Cassidy & Greene. The programmers also joined Apple at that time to continue work on the program, I don't know if they are still there. Apple hired a programmer to work on the port of iTunes to Win XP & 2000. iTunes is most certainly maintained by Apple as part of it's iLife bundle and also as a free standalone download.



Anonymous
Location: China
Guest
Aug 10 (2005) 11:28AM  

Thank you, Musicman.


iTunes works awesome for what I've used it for: encoding, organizing and playing music files (mp3 and raw audio), and transporting them to my UMS-compliant audio device (iAudio G3). There's even a third-party plugin that adds OGG to the iTunes app architechture (tho I've never used it and it's currently only for the Mac version).

So why is Creative's software "much better than iTunes"? Was it only stated because "Creative" is an underdog?


--608zz (I'm "anonymous" because this website broke my ability to log in when Austin redesigned it)



UnnDunn
Location: China
Guest
Aug 10 (2005) 12:39PM  

I agree with the sentiment that Creative really needs to trim down its product line to just a few key products. I would say keep the Zen Vision, Zen, Zen Micro and Zen Nano. Dump all the rest. Maybe introduce some variations within each product line, such as different sizes, but apart from that, focus on carefully branding and targeting each product line, and dump all the rest.

I think Creative is silly for continuing to promote products that carry the "Nomad" name.

As far as software goes, I think iTunes is underpowered and overdesigned. I much prefer Windows Media Player 10, simply because it's much more powerful than iTunes and MediaSource, and it can handle more than just music.



UnnDunn
Location: China
Guest
Aug 10 (2005) 12:41PM  

Also, when Creative develops new tech, it should find a way to make the product fit within one of those key product lines. Either that or it should create a new product line, but only if that line has very distinct characteristics.



NunyaDamBiznizz
Location: China
Guest
Aug 10 (2005) 01:06PM  

Bought a 10gb Jukebox in 1998 - loved it
Bought a 20gb Zen in 2001 - loved it
Bought a 40gb Touch in 2005 - love it
Buy my own cds, rip 'em myself -- don't give a damn about download services or album art.
I'll never buy CrApple, I'll never own an iPutz, I'll never bleat like the sheep that follow the majority -- I'm thankful for an underdog like Creative that give us rock solid alternatives (I prefer the non-conformist crowd).



musicman

Comments: 338
Aug 10 (2005) 01:09PM  

Forgot to mention, if you have a DAP that mounts as a USB Mass Storage Device you can use iTunes with it with the addition of a plug-in;

[Linky]



billy gun
Location: China
Guest
Aug 10 (2005) 08:51PM  

about the question: what makes creative softwere better than itunes?
Here it goes:
- First of all I talking about the the transfer softwere - not about the itunes player.
- Creative softwre is quiker to log and transfer files.
- creative softwere is much better to manege the files, I mean check up and correct the files.

Itues is a all in one softwere:
- player
- transfer files
- encoder

what I whant to say is that I prefer the creative sofwere to manege and transfer the files to the portable player.

Hoo you can ask this to any one that bought a creative and a ipod player!

For sure my next player will be from creative..

Hoo imagine the apple video player (only .mov files), on the zen vizion you get avi. xvid. divx....



>_<
Location: China
Guest
Aug 11 (2005) 01:48AM  


Creative result



Jack

Comments: 1
Aug 11 (2005) 09:32AM  

billy, are you referring to Creative MediaSource?



Anonymous
Location: China
Guest
Aug 11 (2005) 10:10AM  

OK, I don't use the "intended player" (iPod) with iTunes, so I don't know anything about the interoperability of them. The app itself (which is all that you mentioned earlier) is efficient enough tho that, for me at least, speeds for transfer and encoding are determined by other factors only (HD-speed for transfer, internet for CDDB connection, etc). The way it manages files seems intuitive enough to me. What more could they offer for that?

As for the unrelated comment regarding a personal video player - apparently you missed the news report - Personal video players will NEVER be much in demand. In order to use them, the user needs to focus all of their attention on the device. The mediocre demand for personal DVD players is a good indication that PVPs would not not sell very well either. I highly doubt that Apple would ever want to bother with a market of such small potential as personal video players.


--608zz



billy gun
Location: China
Guest
Aug 12 (2005) 08:18AM  

Jack,
yes, I'm referring to Creative MediaSource..

I always encode my cds with dbpoweramp, I never use WMP or itunes to encode any file.

Now days, I'm encoding every file to mp3 320kbps - I think this way; on a near future we all wont have problems with disk space, even with batteries, so I encode with the highest quality of mp3 - I'm thinkin of wma lossless also.

--------
atcualy I have more than 35,000.00 music files,
I use windows media center on my pc.





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Lacene
The ZVM is pretty much the most "high-end" DAP I ever got....I got started on DAPs by getting a Dell Pocket DJ, lol. It was a re-branded Creative DAP. All others I got are Sandisk DAPs....

Saijin_Naib
Yeah, I used to remember when I was jealous of Creative DAPs. I couldn't afford to have the "top of the line" DAPs back then, and messed with no-name Chinese OEMs.

These days, you're almost better off taking that route.

Cowon still seems to put out quality. Samsung just makes Android players, same for Archos.

MPIO (my favorite) has become defunct.

These are dark times for DAPs

Lacene
I still have my ZVM that I got when they first came out....it still works and looks like new...I never abused it and put one of those clear protective shields on it and got a silicon case for it.

A shame that Creative put it out - their most highly-regarded DAP ever - and then seemed to go downhill immediately afterwards...

Saijin_Naib
Yeah, I played with one. Pretty slick, great interface. So great in fact, that Apple largely knocked it off and sued Creative to keep the rights. Bastards.

I have a Creative Zen Vision Micro 6gb I need to repair/swap drive out of.

LiQuiD_FuSioN
Anyone have experience with the Creative ZEN Vision:M? Now that was a cool looking player too, never got to try one out though.

Saijin_Naib
Yeah, my friend had the S9 and he really loved it, especially the custom GUIs people would cook up.

I noticed that Cowon recently released a D20 and an X9. They both look rather tempting. Availability looks spotty at the moment though :L

My favorite DAP probably would have been the Zune30, if it was slightly more customizable. The RIO players had great auto-playlisting & searching support.

Similarly, the Haier Ibiza (despite its other shortcomings) has a brilliant filter feature and related features during playback.

It, however, can't make a shuffle list to save its digital life so it gets on my nerves using it as my car player.

Yeah, people still seem to love convergence devices. I'm still of the mind that I'd rather have devices that are designed for a specific task, and execute that task properly. The biggest pet peeve I have is crappy tools, and convergence devices by definition, are crappy tools. By attempting to do everything, they do no single task well.

SarahV
@Saijin: The J3 is one of the best DAPs I've had. The GUI is way better than the S9. The hardware is pretty similar. I still have a special place in my heart for the iRiver Clix, though. Loved the interface on that so much...

The problem we have today is that hardly anyone actually uses a DAP and they don't want to carry more than one device. I probably carry my mp3 player more than my phone, but I realize most people are not like me

Saijin_Naib
This community was tops. I still think we could be.

LiQuiD_FuSioN
Good ol' DAP Review! I still remember when Engadget would rip your stories off.

Saijin_Naib
That sounds like a decent size for a music library. How are you finding the Cowon? They seem to be one of the few manufactures left that makes anything halfway decent. I'm not interested in Yet Another Android Slate (YAAS) like the Archos line have devolved into.

But Sarah, the iProducts are the bestest things ever! Their batteries last like, totally way longer than like, other players do!


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