It's a big interview i guess but read it theire is some important things, and the futer of creative 3d card.
And tel me what you think the next 3d card of creative will be.(he's telling wait there is a surprise coming out soon).




"""""""Interview with Creative Labs Europe""""""""""

With the first-purchase-PC market a little stale at the moment, the peripheral and upgraded section seems to be doing a lot better. One major company in this sector is Creative Labs, who've been around since 1981. They've been rather quiet on the graphics card front so I though that I'd run some question by John Moseley, the marketing manager for the UK region. The interview ran into sound card sales and the general long term plans for Creative Labs Europe. Several members of their team contributed the answers...



- James Ball, UK Product Specialist

- John Moseley, UK Marketing Manager

- Eoin Leyden, European Brand Manager - Graphics and Video products.



I was very pleased and pleasantly surprised by some of the answers returned - read and enjoy!





(1) It must be the question that's on most peoples lips when they think about Creative Labs - are you going to release a video card based on the NVIDIA GeForce3 chipset at all in the foreseeable future?

I'm unable to go into specifics at this time, but you will see some very positive news about a range of new NVIDIA based 3D Blaster graphics cards in the very near future.





(2) What are the primary reasons for not following the Annihilator product line to the current state (GeForce3)? Is it production costs, smaller profit margins or a more serious reason?

Sorry, can't answer that at this time, but "keep em peeled, something is coming..."





(3) Hercules are obviously widening their range by going for the Kryo II chipset. There are plenty of rumours that Creative will be joining them in budget end with either the Kryo II or even the Voodoo 4/5. Is there any grain of truth to these thoughts?

All details will become clear with the future announcements.





(4) Another, less believed, rumour was that Creative were pulling out of the video card market all together. Although PC sales have gone somewhat stale at the moment, surely there is still enough sales to stay firmly within it? Any thoughts on this?

The source of these rumours was a statement made during one of our quarterly conference calls. What was actually said was that we were de-emphasising the graphics business. This means in essence that from a fiscal point of view we would not anticipate in advance the revenue contribution of our graphics business but rather take a more opportunistic approach where we see strong market demand. It's important to understand that whilst Creative operates on a world-wide basis we frequently have divergent product lines in different business regions to reflect the dramatically different markets we operate in. In Europe we have enjoyed significant success with our retail graphics business and as such it is an area we are firmly committed to. Other markets may have different dynamics that may make our approach there more cautious.





(5) What are your general views of the video card business at the moment and where do you see it, and Creative, heading?

(Answer courtesy of Eoin Leyden, European Brand Manager - Graphics and Video products)

The graphics card market has been, and will continue to be, a very competitive arena. Over the past few years we have seen significant consolidation of the market and many once proud companies have been laid to rest. The most recent victim (3Dfx) was a sad departure as they really were a driving force in the industry. But, they fell behind the technology curve and paid the price.



I guess the most important question is whether the current rate of development continue (the answer is probably yes) but another question is will it be economically viable and will consumers get true value for money? This is a far more difficult question to answer. Looking back we see cards like Voodoo2 & TNT2 Ultra that enjoyed life spans of over two years and were sub $300. Today the latest cutting edge technology is so complex that prices have been known to rise above the $500 mark - however at the same time the useable lifespan is decreasing. Clearly this is not the ideal sustainable model. Certainly there will always be a segment of the market that makes no compromise and quite simply wants the best performance possible on a PC. However as hardware prices continue to rise and the software that utilises these features falls further behind the hardware this makes this segment smaller and smaller.



We are definitely reaching the point where speed is becoming slightly less important. Does it really matter if you get 105fps or 107fps running Quake III or UT at 1600x1200x32 with everything turned on? The answer is of course is not. Now we are looking for other things such as 4x FSAA to differentiate between cards - that is of course until the next generation of software titles arrive. Everyone who saw the Doom III previews realises just what the PC is capable of doing. But even this will be a long way from the ultimate aim which is to do in real-time the sort of graphics that today we only see pre-rendered ... if anyone tells you that we are close to this today they are way off the mark. Look at it this way - if you have a scene that takes 10 seconds to render in 3D Studio then to do that in real-time at a playable sustainable frame rate requires it to be at least 100 times faster than it is today! Even at NVIDIA's rate of development it's going to take quite a few years ... and by then the goalposts will probably have moved!



In summary, there is no end in sight to the leaps and bounds that will occur in the 3D graphics arena. The real question is how much will people be prepared to pay? The solution of more complex chips coupled with more expensive memory will only get us so far. For the next step we need other, cheaper means, of bypassing some of the bottlenecks. There are other solutions which can offer the promise of GeForce3 type performance on a sub $200 card. The only prediction for the future is that ultimately the consumer will be the real winner as they will be able to buy workstation level graphics for the sort of money 2D only cards once sold for.





(6) Moving from video to sound, it's fair to say that yourselves have dominated the field for several years now. People cry "monopoly" when they see such a lead (i.e. Microsoft, NVIDIA) but Creative doesn't wear this tag at all. Have you any thoughts as to why this is so?

I think that the main reason for this is that although we enjoy a very strong position in the sound card and speaker markets and are a very strong voice in video / graphics... we don't effectively OWN the market - there is always a good choice for the consumer. Ultimately this is the best situation for the consumer as they benefit from healthy competition between the hardware manufacturers. I'd also like to think that the millions of Sound Blaster and Cambridge SoundWorks speakers owners out there are satisfied customers who do not feel the need to cry at all..!





(7) The SoundBlaster Live! range of cards have been incredibly successful and unlike many other PC components the technology in the products has lasted well. What are the next "big" things likely to be in the sound card market?

Unfortunately I am unable to comment on specifics, but you can be sure that our future sound cards due this calendar year will offer a significant advance over the existing Sound Blaster range of products. There are many advancements that could be made, but aspects such as connectivity and ease of use / installation will be top of the list.





(8) How does Creative view the competition? Despite numerous attempts, nobody seems to be anywhere near to strangling the SBLive!.

Competition is healthy and we view it as a necessity to maintain our technological edge. Creative are not in the business of knocking the competition as it is simply not professional. The focus should really be on why our products are continually winning group tests and why people choose them over others. As for why nobody has come close to 'strangling' the Sound Blaster Live! - it's simply a very good card with the support of a multi-million dollar, global company behind it. Most people take a lot of satisfaction from the fact the Creative are such a well known and trusted brand in the PC market with a support package that really is second to none. For example, we offer tech support in 15 languages in Europe alone! Also with partners like EMU Labs (a wholly owned Creative subsidiary) helping our product development it is very difficult for the competition to better what we can offer.





(9) If one thing does spoil the party, it has to be the issues between the SBLive cards and VIA chipsets. Do you know what the main causes for the problems are? What is the relationship like between yourselves and VIA? Is it something that will require a major hardware change to solve?

I'm awaiting a response from our audio brand team, so will update when I have it.





(10) At one point, your PC was nothing if it didn't have a Creative CD-ROM or Creative set of speakers but there doesn't seem to be any one major name anymore? Do you think that this is a reflection on the PC market, the consumer or Creative?

It's fair to say that there are a lot more players out there in the CD-ROM business compared to a few years ago. It's also worth stating that Creative have always been about offering cutting edge technology to the masses. CD-ROM's are now very much a commodity product and so although we still sell a LOT of drives our focus has moved on to other products and areas. We're still in the CD-ROM business, but we won't be aggressively attacking the drive market in the attempt to increase our unit share by a few percent, when the available margin is so low.



With regard to speakers, I'm a little surprised at your question. As you know, Creative kick-started the serious PC speaker market and our sales are still growing healthily. What's more, we are continuing to enjoy design wins and more than ever our speakers are being specified by PC's manufacturers as standard equipment on their PC's. We're currently the number 1 PC speaker manufacturer in Europe and you only have to look at a PC roundup in Computer Shopper or such magazine and you will see that a good proportion of them feature our surround sound (FourPointSurround or Desktop Theatre) speakers. Perhaps some of the confusion stems from the fact that most of our speakers are now branded 'Cambridge SoundWorks' which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Creative. We have adopted this approach to ensure we build a consistent speaker brand on a world-wide basis.



For your info, Cambridge SoundWorks are a very well know and respected speaker brand in North America - and are responsible for the R&D of all our PC speakers products as well as a seriously comprehensive range of home-theatre speakers with products from the entry level to many thousands of dollars. My last point on our speaker range is to highlight our current success and continued drive to further establish ourselves in the home entertainment market. The launch before Xmas of our Desktop Theatre 3500 and PS2000 speakers demonstrates our commitment to growing our speaker business outside of the PC space. The DTT3500 are as at home on a PC as they are on a consumer DVD player and our PS2000 speakers are designed to complement the capabilities of the Playstation 2, with advanced Dolby Digital decoding and serious ooomph (technical term).



With regard to the market and consumers, people are getting more selective about what they buy. Gone are the days that a product would sell on its functionality alone, it now has to look the part as well. This is in part the reason for the slow down of the typical beige box PC design - Creative have taken note and are committed to ensuring we are one of the leading brands of new cool looking consumer electronics products.



(Just to clarify the comment about the speakers, I was referring to a generic part of a PC system rather than those in particular. Most readers will be well aware that SoundWorks speakers are typically the first choice with OEM - Nick)





(11) There seems to be a definitive move from yourselves to expand into the non-direct-PC peripheral market, e.g. MP3 players. Has this been a good decision? Do you see more potential here than in, say, the video card area?

There certainly has been a concerted move into the external device market, not all of which are PC related (e.g. PS2000 speakers for PS2). It's no secret that Creative see huge potential in this market, anyone would of course. Although our core market is very strong, there is a much larger market out there who do not necessarily fall in to our core market of early adopters of technology. Although our core market is always growing, the number of people who are willing to open up their PC and install a sound or graphics card is considerably smaller than those willing to plug a WebCam or other external device (e.g. DAP Jukebox) into their PC using a USB or other type of cable. In short, Creative will continue to develop and introduce class leading products to both our existing core and and emerging new markets - all at mass market price points. We will certainly continue to operate in our core markets, but we will increasingly use our expertise and brand name to bridge the gap between technology and consumer electronics products. Currently you have Creative moving towards this future from the technology / PC side and people like Sony from the consumer electronics side. Somewhere in the middle we are going to meet.



We firmly believe we have an advantage in this converging market as our whole business model is set up to deal with fast moving world 6-18 month product life cycles. The first big step in this direction for Creative was the DAP / Nomad Jukebox, which has been a huge success and is either the No.1 or among the top selling digital audio players in every market we operate in. We've certainly never had so much and such diverse publicity and interest over a new product. Rest assured that this is the first of many 'must have' products which we feel will help us become a household name for consumer electronics in the near future.





(12) Finally, certain companies are expanding into new, uncharted areas (e.g. NVIDIA into motherboard chipsets) to stay afloat and grow if they can. Do you think that Creative may ever have to do the same or will it survive by expanding into totally non-PC sectors, such as hi-fi's etc?

Hopefully the answer above gives some insight into the strategic vision and adaptability of Creative on a world-wide level. Let's face it, the market for hi-tech consumer products moves fast, so something said today could well be out of date tomorrow! It would be foolish to rule out any expansion whether it be horizontal, vertical or any other possible direction!!





Very interesting indeed. John and co. were certainly very closed about Creative's graphics card situation, but nothing was said about denying or confirming GeForce 3 and Kryo II cards. It may just be that with the delayed release of other GeForce 3 cards, it's perhaps been a wise move of Creative for not jumping in on the bandwagon. Time will only tell.



It was good to see such honest answers concerning what Creative think about the current market and all - they seem to genuinely want to keep the PC market alive not only for themselves but for the competition too. This can only be good for the consumers too.



I would like to thank John Moseley, James Ball and Eoin Leyden for taking time out of their busy schedules to take part, with great detail, in this interview.

Couldn't you just provide a link to the webpage with the interview.


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