[Peter]

Related to this thread, but more interesting...

After learning 'painful lessons' in past MP3 battle with Apple, Sim Wong Hoo is coming out with 'guns blazing' for Zen Micro's launch

EXPECT to see and hear Creative Technology everywhere as it embarks on a worldwide marketing campaign to snatch dominance of the digital music player market from Apple Computer.

Mr Sim Wong Hoo, Creative's chief executive officer, promised to come out with 'guns blazing' in what he called a war, and said his company would 'take no prisoners'.

A recent spate of TV and newspaper advertisements, he said, was the beginning of a multi-million-dollar marketing campaign to correct what he called mistakes in the past.

Said Mr Sim: 'We have learnt a lot of painful lessons in the MP3 market after being overtaken by Apple.

'We have the technology with better audio quality, but we lost out on marketing. We didn't shout about it. For example, our battery life is much longer than Apple's gadgets.'

According to Mr Sim, Apple had a 17 per cent market share worldwide of the digital audio player market in June, while Creative's share was 10 per cent then.

He said Creative should not have slowed down its marketing efforts when the dot.com bubble burst in 2001, and when Sars hit the region last year.

Creative will be going big with the launch of its latest product, the Zen Micro, to ensure that it grabs a greater mindshare among consumers: On the cards is a $100,000 launch party next month which may feature celebrity guests.

Product placements in Hollywood movies and endorsements by celebrities like singer Jewel are other possibilities.

These represent a significant departure from traditional Creative product launches, which are low-key affairs held at the company's Jurong East headquarters.

The Zen Micro will compete directly with Apple's iPod Mini.

Touted as the 'iPod Mini killer', the Zen Micro was developed by engineers and designers whose mission brief was to 'beat Apple on all fronts'.

To do this, the Zen Micro will come in 10 colours - the iPod Mini has five - and will include features missing in Apple's product, such as built-in FM radio and voice-recording capabilities.

Price will also be a factor. The Micro, which has a capacity of 5 gigabytes (GB), will sell for $499, compared with the 4GB iPod Mini's price tag of $458.

One reason for Creative's big push in the digital music player market is Mr Sim's vision of it: He says it is exploding, and predicts that it is potentially bigger than the cellphone market.

'Everyone can own three MP3 devices in different colours, or of different types, such as flash-memory or hard disk-based. You can also upgrade your player, just like your cellphone.'

Mr Sim is equally upbeat about his speaker product line, particularly with the big push by Microsoft to transform computers into entertainment centres for the living room.

As for Creative's flagship Sound Blaster products, the company will continue to roll them out, including a PC card version that plugs into notebook computers to provide high quality surround sound.

A new Sound Blaster sound card for the PC, based on a newly-developed audio microprocessor, is also likely to be launched next year.

Should Apple be worried? Creative is no Apple or Microsoft, but they're not small either...

[Powaqqatsi]

Bring It On™

[demograph68]

iPod Mini's price tag of $458

[Peter]

Originally posted by demograph68:

singapore currency

[chris v]

It's like those cheezy Karate movies, where the good guy is standing in the middle of a ring of bad guys, and they all take turns rushing him one by one, and he cuts them all down, one after another.


Neeeeeeext?

[xi_hyperon]

"iPod killer" is probably one of the most over-used phrases of 2004. Still waiting to actually see one...

[MindFad]

Like, in a few months, we'll totally be like, "Hoo?"

[demograph68]

Originally posted by MindFad:
Like, in a few months, we'll totally be like, "Hoo?"

Clever.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

OOOOH SCARY!

[xi_hyperon]

Yeah, that's awfully attractive. Good work guys.

[MindFad]

Surely that model has a BTO sun shades option?

[xi_hyperon]

Originally posted by MindFad:
Surely that model has a BTO sun shades option?

It should come with a little brown paper bag with holes for the buttons.

[wdlove]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
Yeah, that's awfully attractive. Good work guys.

It looks so square.

[hayesk]

The claim that the Zen is better because is comes in 10 colours instead of 5 really tells the story about why Apple understands product design and the rest of the industry doesn't. Creative looked that amount of colours - Apple looked at what the colours look like.

[djohnson]

Watch them spend millions on advertising and lose money overall because they cannot recoup their ad budget.

[Naplander]

I like it!

[mitchell_pgh]

The difference between Apple and Creative is... Apple creates/innovates an industry... and Creative waits for the industry to be created, then steps in.

AKA, Creative is the type of company that will be wearing the "cool" Lance Armstrong yellow wristbands in a year from now.

[OldManMac]

2 million iPods last quarter alone, and I'm sure Creative is going to take over. All they're going to get out of their "shouting" is a sore throat.

[Apple Pro Underwear]

do they think the iPod mini is not going to get an upgrade as well?

Bling Bling.



I totally agree on the product design though. they just don't get that the reason the iPod is what it is. they just think: quantity = quality. that is not the case otherwise, the ipod would not be #1

[Landos Mustache]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
The difference between Apple and Creative is... Apple creates/innovates an industry... and Creative waits for the industry to be created, then steps in.

I thought creative was years ahead of Apple with hard drive based players and MP3 players.

[Nodnarb]

While reading this thread, the new iPod and U2 commercial came on. While watching it, I realized that Creative is going to have to do A LOT of advertising and stuff to even compete with apple. I mean Apple has a 92% marketshare, I think that the other companies should give up.

Go Apple!

P.S. I would rather have an iPod mini over that ugly Creative player any day.

[Randman]

Well, I'm working in Creative's backyard and despite aggressive marketing, dubious claims and awful designs, I can say that Apple's iPod line remains the king, even in Singapore.

[typoon]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
Yeah, that's awfully attractive. Good work guys.

It's so Orange.

[Peter]

i dont think anyone will be able to topple Apple, unless they do somthing amazing.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
It should come with a little brown paper bag with holes for the buttons.

[DeathToWindows]

Ecch.... looks like the iPod's mutated bastard brother

[typoon]

The other thing that makes the iPod and the iPod mini so great are the Accessories you can get for them.These new devices even the ones that have been out a while don't have anything close to the amount of accessories that the iPod has. It's also about design and ease of use. It's also the "coolnes factor" It's "cool" to have an iPod.

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Do I need a radio? No, that's why I have a portable music player, to listen to my choice of music.

Do I need a recording option? No.
Do I need an ethernet jack? No.
Do I need WMA, OGG or other formats? No.
Do I care that the iPod can't do gapless playback or custom EQs? No.

[Nodnarb]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
Do I need a radio? No, that's why I have a portable music player, to listen to my choice of music.

Do I need a recording option? No.
Do I need an ethernet jack? No.
Do I need WMA, OGG or other formats? No.
Do I care that the iPod can't do gapless playback or custom EQs? YES!!!

Fixed.

[Beewee]

92% of the market share... They'll have quite the fight on their hands. iTMS and iPod are household names by now. They might gain more market share but I doubt they'll ever "beat apple on all fronts"

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by brandon420506:
Fixed.

I wouldn't say no to gapless, and quite frankly I'm surprised Apple hasn't done that yet, but it's not a deal-killer for me.

[typoon]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
Do I need a radio? No, that's why I have a portable music player, to listen to my choice of music.

Do I need a recording option? No.
Do I need an ethernet jack? No.
Do I need WMA, OGG or other formats? No.
Do I care that the iPod can't do gapless playback or custom EQs? No.

I agree.

Radio? LIke you said that is why we buy a Portable Music Player.
Recording Option? If I want it I will get an add-on for my iPod
Ethernet Jack? For what? Don't really see a use for this.
WMA,OGG or other formats? While it might be nice not really a deal breaker for me.
Gapless Playback- also not a deal breaker for me.

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by brandon420506:
Fixed.

Good fixination.

[FulcrumPilot]

There is huge market guaranteed for the micro if only one can roll it up and smoke it.

[typoon]

Originally posted by FulcrumPilot:
There is huge market guaranteed for the micro if only one can roll it up and smoke it.

The iPod mini seems to be doing a pretty good job of smokin it. Then again is Apple comes out with a Flash based one then I think they would have it locked up.

[d.fine]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
It should come with a little brown paper bag with holes for the buttons.

Haha

It's ugly; iPod will win !

[Link]

The one thing the ipod sucks at (thanks to apple's software department) is one of the most important things in an mp3 player -- SOUND.

Yes, SOUND. It's not a hardware problem (linux can play audio clearer, even if it's way laggier, heheh)... but for some reason the ipod sucks at getting that "clear and loud" sound quality I like, at least for availability. The ipod doesn't even make up for it by having customizable EQ presets -- there's no way to correct it.

I mean, luckily it's not a *DEAL BREAKER*, I have an ipod myself, but it makes me mad there's no custom EQ or anything.. unless you like bass booster or treble reducer, lol

[xi_hyperon]

Are you using the stock earplugs? If so, it could be that. I got a pair of Sportapros and the sound is much, much better.

Or it could be that you've got excessive earwax.

[ASIMO]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Bring It On™

If by this you mean to emulate the accomplishments of Bush, then Apple is in trouble.

[Superchicken]

Next Creative will declare war on terror!

They'll invade Iraq and make them all listen to ugly mp3 players!

What creative needs to do is stop trying to fight with Apple, but rather piss Apple off by working with em. Create a player that works with iTunes, advertise that it plays AAC files, and then pull a Real and reverse engineer Fair Play so that it'll work on your's. Then advertise it as iPod compatible and under cut Apple. Granted I'm not entirely sure how easy they could do that.

But the thing is Creative really needs to just try to be better than Apple but they can't. So I'm not really sure what they should be doing. That said I feel bad for any celebs they get to promote this Zen mini thing... by the way does anyone else find it fairly creepy that they market all their stuff as Zen? I know it's probably not a bad selling point for most people, but I personally don't think it's entirely proper to name your hardware after religious school of thought or something like that. Would you buy the Apple 20 gig Baptist?

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:

Redheaded Stepchild.™

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by typoon:
Recording Option? If I want it I will get an add-on for my iPod

And won't you be surprised once you find out that the add-ons for the iPod are limited to 8 kHz mono.

Of course, this Zen Micro might not be much better, since I can't seem to find out whether it has an external microphone port or whether you're stuck with the built-in one.

As for being ugly, who cares? The thing sits in your pocket most of the time, where you can't see it.

[ambush]

can't they hire a decent designer for once?

the only ipod imitation that was decently designed is the philips one

I mean... if appe chose white why wouldn't a competitor choose black.. it could be as sexy as an ipod if well designed.

[storer]

NEWSFLASH
Creative sucks!

[hayesk]

Originally posted by Link:
Yes, SOUND. It's not a hardware problem (linux can play audio clearer, even if it's way laggier, heheh)... but for some reason the ipod sucks at getting that "clear and loud" sound quality I like, at least for availability. The ipod doesn't even make up for it by having customizable EQ presets -- there's no way to correct it.

Uhm, are you talking about the iPod or the earbuds? The iPod sounds fantastic. Maybe yours is broken or you haven't tried better headphones.

I mean, luckily it's not a *DEAL BREAKER*, I have an ipod myself, but it makes me mad there's no custom EQ or anything.. unless you like bass booster or treble reducer, lol

There's a few more than that. What are you specifically looking for? By looking at the same ones in iTunes, they do give you a bit of range there - if you need them. I find that I never use an EQ anyway.

[tavilach]

Originally posted by brandon420506:
While reading this thread, the new iPod and U2 commercial came on. While watching it, I realized that Creative is going to have to do A LOT of advertising and stuff to even compete with apple. I mean Apple has a 92% marketshare, I think that the other companies should give up.

Go Apple!

P.S. I would rather have an iPod mini over that ugly Creative player any day.

Umm...

So, you want Apple to crush all competitors? Isn't that what Microsoft does...buying out and/or crushing all competitors?

92% marketshare...lovely. Apple has a damn monopoly. Go Apple? Apple isn't angelic. Apple makes good computers, and has better business tacticts than Microsoft (so don't start pulling out your history book, pointing out the evil of Microsoft...I know that Microsoft is worse), but it seems that they're drifting away from being "good ol' Apple." Do you want Apple to become Microsoft?

Here you guys are, rooting Apple's monopoly on, when it's similar to Microsoft's monopolies. If it were Microsoft, you'd be cursing like crazy, but it's Apple...

Sure, I want Apple to succeed, but it's not a war in which they have to win, and I'm not going to start rooting for them to destroy all their enemies. You wouldn't do that for Microsoft, would you?

When there's a monopoly, there's no competition, and that's Microsofts problem. By all means, let the iPod be successful, but again, don't root for Apple to defeat all competitors! It's hypocritical, and furthermore, it won't help you in the long run.

On a side note, this is a bit of a thread. We all love iPods, but just today in my Physics class, I did see a kid with a Dell DJ. I don't think that most consumers really care, or even know about the differences. They buy what's advertised, which for most people is the iPod. For this guy, it probably listed the Dell DJ as an option to order with a Dell Computer. If Creative starts advertising like crazy, the iPod will still be the most popular name, but slowly things do change...

As for the ugliness factor, do you know how many people get excited when I say "iBook," and start telling me how cute iBooks are? They're talking about the clamshell iBooks (many people still equate Apple with them), and those were just plain hideous...

[Superchicken]

tavilach, you loose.

Apple does not have a monopoly, They're not driving any competitors out of business, they're competing and wooping their butts with a better product. They have no obligation to help their competitors. They have not told any retailers that they will not be allowed to sell iPods if they sell Creative ones, in fact they are still making an effort to get into more stores.

Not to mention Apple believes it will continue to sell by innovating thus Apple will continue to make the iPod better. I would have no problem with a large company owning the PC world if they weren't evil and continued to try and make things better and did so. Yes competition is good, but music players will always have competition file formats can change, Apple is not owning any labels here, they're not strong arming many labels (though to be honest I wouldn't mind if they did hehehe) and they're not stopping people from moving over to other players if they don't like the iPod.

The problem is Apple is a better company and nobody has a huge investment in iRiver or Creative media that requires their media player.

That said Apple could run into trouble when stuff downloaded off the iTMS can never be used with another player in the future... that's actually a lil less than great... but makes good business sense. My guess is other players will eventually be forced by the gov to be allowed to use FairPlay songs. That said so long as WMA is a pay for the ability to use codec the iPod will never and should never support it.

[Earth Mk. II]

Remember kiddos - this is 90-odd percent market share among MP3 players with a hard drive. Not that overall MP3 player market.

[scottiB]

A little OT:

Having a monopoly in a market isn't inherently bad or evil (if it were, the winner of the board game would go to jail). What MS was accused of was using the power of that monopoly to thwart competition.

While the iPod has a great market share, Apple is not preventing any and all who wish to start an online music store or develop the next iPod kille-- I mean wannabe.

[CharlesS]

Apple does have a monopoly.

I can't get any audio player other than the iPod that can play AAC files. Therefore, if I want to play files from the iTunes Music Store or encode files as Apple Lossless, I have to go with an iPod. However, the iPod can't record music. If I want something that can record music, I have to use third-rate formats to store music that I want to listen to. And that sucks.