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Creative declares war on Apple

ANN/ THE STRAITS TIMES
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-milliondollar 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 voicerecording 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 flashmemory 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.