Thursday, August 24, 2006

Apple made a Creative Truce

Apple Computers and Creative Technology had amicably settled their differences. Apple will pay $100 million to license Creative's technology and use it in its iPods, with the opportunity to get back a portion of the fees if Creative is able to license that technology to other companies.

In addition, Creative would start making accessories like headphones, speakers for the iPod as a member of Apple's "Made for iPod" program.

Win or Loss? For Apple, I think it is just some pocket change to get rid of a pesky compeititor and get them to make products for you. US$100m is a drop in the ocean compared to the US$1.5 billion that iPod had generated. With other lawsuits regarding iTunes in Europe and the challenge of the Microsoft upcoming Zune player and its music service, Apple would be glad to settle this cloud over their head and put their energies elsewhere.

Creative? Maybe, it is a graceful way to exit from the lawsuits and get something out of it. Creative had made a loss of US$118m loss last year, and the settlement would happily wiped it off. I do wonder if making accessories for iPod would hurt the sales and development of Creative's own Zen music players. However, iPod does have a overwhelming lead in market share, and it may signal that Creative might end their own line of music players and put their bets on the accessories business.


Technorati: , , , , .

posted by wert | Thursday, August 24, 2006 | Email This!


0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

Disclaimer: This blog is not intended to be authorative or clever in any way. It was based on rambling of a half crazed creature, so treat it as such and let it be! I was asked to keep my dangerous thoughts and unbalanced views all in one safe place , and so I did. Objectivity, Accuracy, Responsiblity and any High Standards are certainly not part of this blog's features. However, I must stress that I do not strive to mislead people, confuse people, and much less undermine our national strategy.