Creative Caves

Support local. If we as Singaporeans ain't gonna support our fellow citizens, who else would?

This brings me to an incident a few years ago, when I wanted to get an mp3 player. I was temporarily torn by a toss up between a cumbersome Creative's Zen NX and a sleeker Apple's iPod. Nonetheless, fervant patriotism compelled me to get choose this.

Creative's Nomad Jukebox Zen NX (20GB)

It conveniently doubled up as a paper weight.

As opposed to this...

Apple's 4th Generation iPodOf course, my decision was partly swayed by the almost $200 price difference between both.

But unfortunately, after more than 3 years, the 3.5mm earphone jack gave way. And even Creative's service centre had deemed it too obsolete to repair it.

Thankfully, Sony Ericsson's Walkman Series of mobile phones more than made up for the loss.

Ssony Ericsson W810i

Of which... I left it on that fateful NUS bus on 1st February 2008. Permanently.
*observes a moment of silence*

A week later, the huge shoes of Sony Ericsson's w810i was filled by my favourite Nokia 6500 Slide.In fact, it ranks as one of my favourite phones to hate, of all times. *@^#*?!!

In the meanwhile, I also bought a Creative MuVo V100 (2GB) as my jogging companion, which conveniently doubled up as a memory thumbdrive.

Creative MuVo V100

Who the heck came up with "MuVo V100 as" a name anyway?

But I could no longer contend with listening to mp3 anymore. I wanted to watch my backlog of tv episodes and anime series, accumulating in my hard disk. I also needed to maximize my efficiency by doing word-processing or reading a variety of documents during those arduous travelling times.

It boiled down to getting an ultra-portable laptop such as the Asus Eee PC or HP Mini-Note.
or an integrated touchscreen phone such as HTC Touch Pro or Sony Ericsson's long overdued Xperia X1.

HTC Touch Pro

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

But alas.
The integrated phones are not surprisingly overpriced and watching a movie on a laptop while balancing on a bus ain't exactly my cup of tea.

So...

...I succumbed to the inevitable.

My pro-Creative and anti-Apple stance had to cave in, this one time.

Tempted by a 10% discount, I had finally bought an
Apple iPod Touch, 16GB.

Even my mother was a little surprised when she saw the Apple logo.
"I thought you would buy a Creative one?"Nonetheless, I still count myself as an ardent Creative fan, albeit one who is very worried for its future. With continued battering of the global stock markets and lackluster performance by Creative, its stocks have fallen to a mere fraction of its heydays.

Out of pure curiousity, I downloaded its Annual Report for fiscal year 2008 to browse.

Whatever the intention of the "Chairman's Message" in the first couple of pages, I was convinced that the company is almost certainly doomed.

Here's an excerpt from the chairman and CEO of Creative Technology, Sim Wong Hoo.

Dear Shareholders,

Creative is a company that is known to thrive in adversity. The adversities we are now facing, both internally and externally, will serve to propel us forward, albeit more carefully.

We have a very clear vision of what we want to achieve. We just have to be a lot more focused. We are finally seeing the light ahead of us. The path ahead could undoubtedly still be thorny and challenging, but we have the technology and financial resources to clear the way...

....

(Last Paragraph)
Finally, I would like to thank all of you for your patience with Creative. We need this wide breathing space to prepare the company for the exciting opportunities ahead. I believe it will be something you will be very proud of. To Believe in the Impossible.

Wow.
Talk about being brutally honest.


Reference:
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY LTD - ANNUAL REPORT 2008