Everything about Creative Technology totally explained
Creative Technology Limited is a listed manufacturer of computer
multimedia products based in
Singapore, where the firm was founded and now under the executive direction of
Sim Wong Hoo on
July 1,
1981. It has more than 5,000 employees worldwide. The American subsidiary of the company is known as
Creative Labs, Inc..
History
Creative began as a computer repair shop, where Sim developed an add-on memory board for the
Apple II computer. Later, they started creating customized PCs adapted in
Chinese. A part of this design included enhanced audio capabilities, so that the device could produce speech and melodies. The success of this audio interface led to the development of a standalone
sound card.
In
1987 Creative released a 12-voice sound generator sound card for the
IBM PC architecture, the
Creative Music System (C/MS), featuring two
Philips SAA 1099 chips. Sim personally went from Singapore to
Silicon Valley and managed to get
RadioShack's
Tandy division to market the product. The card was, however, unsuccessful and lost to
AdLib.
Later, another attempt was made with the
Sound Blaster. This card had the
Yamaha YM3812 chip (also known as OPL2) that was found on the AdLib card, as well as audio capabilities for playing and recording digital samples. Creative used aggressive marketing strategies, from calling the card a "stereo" component to calling the sound producing micro-controller a "DSP", hoping to associate the product with a
digital signal processor. The card soon became a
de facto standard for sound cards in PCs for many years, mostly by the fact that it was the first to bundle what is now considered to be a part of a sound card system: digital audio, on-board music synthesizer, MIDI interface and a joystick port.
On
April 1999, Creative launched the
NOMAD line of
digital audio players that would later introduce the
MuVo and
ZEN series of
portable media players.
On
March 22,
2005,
The Inquirer reported that Creative Labs had agreed to settle in a
class action lawsuit that was filed because of the way its
Audigy and Extigy soundcards were marketed. Creative has offered customers who purchased the cards up to a $62.50 reduction on the cost of their next purchase with Creative, while the lawyers involved in filing the dispute against Creative will receive payment of approximately $470,000.
In
2007, Creative voluntarily delisted itself from
NASDAQ, which had the symbol of
CREAF. Its stocks are now solely on the
Singapore Exchange (SGX-ST).
Daniel_K Incident
In late
March of
2008, Creative experienced a massive public relations backlash in response to a post by the Vice President of Corporate Communications, Phil O'Shaughnessy. In a message posted to the Creative public discussion forums, O'Shaughnessy requested that a user named "Daniel_K" cease distributing modified versions of the drivers for Creative hardware. Daniel_K, a well-known member of the Creative community, modified official drivers in order to allow compatibility on
Windows Vista. O'Shaughnessy took particular issue with the fact that the modified drivers "run on other products for which they're not intended" as well as the fact that Daniel_K was soliciting donations from users in return for his time spent working on them. In addition to demanding that Daniel_K respect Creative's "legal rights in this matter", they also terminated all forum threads regarding Daniel's modified drivers.
Products
Further Information
Get more info on 'Creative Technology'.
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