UnCreative

Extract from an article in the Straits Times today:

SINGAPORE'S Creative Technology has taken its fight with its rival Apple Computer over the MP3 music player market to a new level - by seeking a legal ban on Apple's sale of its best-selling iPod in the United States.

Creative, whose line of Zen MP3 players remains a distant No. 2 in the vital US market, and elsewhere, has taken twin-pronged legal action against Apple in the US.

On Monday, it filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission, claiming Apple's iPods breached a patent it holds over a technology used in iPods. It has also filed a lawsuit in California against the US giant on similar grounds, seeking financial damages, along with a halt to US iPod sales.

The move could give Creative a chance to reverse its fortunes, observers said yesterday, if the court bars Apple from selling iPods, which account for about three in four MP3 players sold in the US. But legal experts say the more probable pay-off Creative can hope for is damages.

Creative Technology should change its name to Uncreative Technology. Their products are no longer innovative, they started up in the MP3 player business but yet got caught by Apple, Samsung and so many others.

They can no longer compete - just have a look at the 50 colours or so that Creative's MP3 players come in these days. This means they have pretty much given up on trying to figure out what the customers might want. Instead they just dump their players in every single colour in their palette in the hopes that someone somewhere will find them to their fancy.

The only reason they still sell any MP3 players these days is that their prices are among the lowest. And even in that category, we now have brands like Le-Mon and others cutting in on their share.

And now, in order to salvage some $$, they are reduced to filing stupid little lawsuits like this one. Apple should sue UnCreative back for trying to copy the sleekness of its iPod players in their Zen range.

UnCreative should just cut its losses and get out of the MP3 player business.