Creative's CEO disses the iPod shuffle: Them's fightin' words!
posted January 12th 2005 1:35PM
Ever since Creative declared war on Apple late last
year we've been expecting a little more of a street brawl between the two. Obviously being number one has made it easy
for Steve Jobs to ignore everyone else, but fortunately Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo (or as Stevie J. probably calls him,
"Sim Wong Who?") wasn't above dishing out some salty fightin' words for us in honor of the launch of the
iPod shuffle yesterday, calling it a "a big let-down" and
"worse than the cheapest Chinese player." This stuff is too good not to blockquote:
We're expecting a good fight but they're coming out with something that's five generations older. It's our first generation MuVo One product feature, without display, just have a (shuffle feature). We had that — that's a four-year-old product. So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, because the flash people — it's worse than the cheapest Chinese player. Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM. They don't have this kind of thing, and they expect to come out with a fight; I think it's a non-starter to begin with.
We know it's going to be hard for companies that have been selling flash-based MP3 players for years to see Apple
swoop in and scoop up a large chunk of the market (loads of amnestic journalists probably won't help, either), but no
matter whether you love 'em or loathe 'em, Apple simply has the design chops, marketing skills, and brand awareness to
drive sales of a flash-based player that these other companies do not. If those other companies did, then by definition
there wouldn't be a market opportunity for Apple here, would there?
[Thanks, Jimmy]
sniff sniff sniff* Does anybody else smell something burning?
Oh WAIT! Its Creative! BUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRN!
shut UP jake you are obviously biased. look at apple, for god's sake. its only because everyone is familiar with the name 'apple' why they can sell good.
I am a Singaporean and the Creative product is a local brand that made it big. I have seen more Creative users than Ipod users here and yes, lack of FM is a valid reason.
Let me say this, I started off as 'reluctant' Creative user because I always thought my first mp3 player will be an Ipod. But I ended up buying a Muvo^2 FM. Now after using it for less than a year I believe at least this player is worth the money.
I don't know about life in America but here in Singapore we have about 5 to 6 great English radio stations so when my Muvo's battery is running low, I switch to FM. Also we have digital tv running in buses, so radio is helful when you want to hear what is going on on screen. Overall I listen to a lot of mp3s both music and podcasts but I listen to a lot of FM radio too.
Over the years I have come across people who think just because they have an Ipod they are like some kind of a genius. I agree the Ipod wins in looks but at the end of the day it sounds exactly the same as my Creative (use a good earphone to compare both product simultaneously). It never fails to amaze me how gullible human beings can get because of a silly marketing campaign.