Yeah, I thought it was interesting that SanDisk's world wide market share is so small. I would have thought that their focus on flash based players using their own kit would work well in global markets-- even better than the US.
It might have something to do with the deals SanDisk has made with US big box retailers that give them ample shelf space and mind share. Possibly the sales channels world wide are more diversified?
Possibly they don't market worldwide, or do so under some other names.
Many of tbe "others" are actually made by a few bigger manufacturers with different plastics, and names, for those local brands. I'd be interested to know just who those actual manufacturers are. I remember reading about a couple, but I forget the names, though one is S. Korean.
You've only got to read Engadget to spot all the anonymous mp3 players going past. Interestingly on that graph Sony don't even register. Neither do any of the traditional audio companies like Akai, JVC, Panasonic...
So do we end up with Apple, MS and SanDisk as the only A list manufacturers of stand alone MP3 players left (with any appreciable market share)?
Am I missing anyone?
I know I'm late on this, but I didn't see anyone call this ito question. MS as an MP3 player with appreciable market share? Do they have something out now with marketshare?
Sure, but the vast bulk of world wide MP3 player sales are dirt cheap, no-name low capacity flash players, which are unlikely to stage a concerted run on the iPod.
Apple still dwarfs the usual suspects, increasingly. I think the trend world wide is the same as the US, except for the world popularity of cheap 'n tiny flash players manufactured by dozens of small players ("other"). The personal computer/iPod combo is still wildly beyond the means of the vast majority of the world's peoples, but so are any other "mainstream" MP3 player.
During the opening of the French and British iTMS Jobs was claiming 52% world wide market share, whatever that means. It is true that iRiver has dropped out since the chart was made.
At any rate, you can see that Creative wasn't hanging onto international market share any better than US market share, and they're the next biggest after Apple, world wide. Without Creative the world market is basically Apple and "other". I can't see Apple offering anything that would compete with "other", but neither does "other" bode to capture the hearts and minds of Apples target demo.
Very weird. I figured the counter suits would have stopped everything.
You obviously don't know how patent law works:
Step 1: tons of tech companies patent thousands of things, many of which have already been patented or have been in use by other companies for a long time
Step 2: Company A outsells company B
Step 3: Company B gets pissed, spends a million dollars to find every patent company A is infringing upon (since they overlap most of the time, there's ALWAYS something), and sues company A.
Step 4: Company A does standard legal procedures, including finding patents Company B is infringing upon, sometimes including almost identical patents that were in the original suit, but filed by Company A instead of B.
Step 5: Both companies hold a staring contest and the first one who blinks gives out a tiny award and the lawyers from both sides go on a booze cruise.
It's standard operating procedure, which is what people don't understand. Successful tech companies keep large amounts of cash around because they KNOW they will be sued, likely frivilously, a few times per year. Less than successful companies sue the bigger ones all the time to get some quick cash. Otherwise, the big companies ignore the small ones because they're not worth suing.
And if you think that's bad, you should see the class action playbook. Oh man those guys are scum, the customer literally gets $10 and a handshake and the lawyers get 10 million dollars.
They are the only company that I know of who makes high quality audio cards for pcs.
High quality?
Only gamers use their audio cards -- any serious professional in the computer music industry stays as far away as possible. Ever tried running the output from a Creative soundcard into a high end soundsystem or mixing board and listening to the noise you get?
Firstly, 1/8" and RCA cables are horrible for medium to long runs (and no high end audio equipment uses them). Secondly, the component shielding needed to isolate audio signals from power lines is nonexistent on Creative cards.
Only gamers use their audio cards -- any serious professional in the computer music industry stays as far away as possible. Ever tried running the output from a Creative soundcard into a high end soundsystem or mixing board and listening to the noise you get?
Firstly, 1/8" and RCA cables are horrible for medium to long runs (and no high end audio equipment uses them). Secondly, the component shielding needed to isolate audio signals from power lines is nonexistent on Creative cards.
(notice that Creative Labs is nowhere to be found)
??? thought I made it clear I wasn't talking about pro level cards...???? Oh well, if I biffed that up, what I was thinking and meant to say, even if I suffered a brain fart, was that they are high quality consumer level cards, vs those $15 3-channel cards by weird never-before-heard-of manufacturers.
Based on my small amount of experience in messing with audio equipment, you are 100% correct and I agree with you completely.
Also based on my small amount of experience in messing with audio equipment, Creative cards are an excelent choice for the budding amature who has a low budget and wants to start branching into digital music, composition, midi sequencing, etc. They provide an excelent hardware interface to do what Garage Band does on the Mac. They are also good for 7.1 channel gaming rigs, as you pointed out above, and for a not-too-expensive home theatre system with good audio fidelity.
I would never try to use one to make money, except maybe for sequencing where what comes out of my audio port is only heard by me. MIDI, MOD (ha, like we'll ever see THAT again!) or simple soundbite mixing.
So I aparently must have made an error of symantics. My apologies for the confusion.
*edit* oops!! There it is, hiding in the original post RIGHT BELOW THE LINE YOU QUOTED!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by celemourn
They are the only company that I know of who makes high quality audio cards for pcs. Ignoring super high end stuff of course. They make afordable cards for people who need more than integrated audio, but less than a $3000 pro audio card.
8)
*edit 2* oh, and yes, I have tried running audio out from my creative SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 X-Gamer to a high end sound system. And yes, there is noticiable noise.
You can't blame the lawyers for this though. I know they are an easy target. But before it gets to the lawyers, it has to be finished. As none of us know what was going on at Apple we can't say. The same thing happened, remember, with MS. Apple missed the boat there as well.
I know how these things happen. Larger companies often miss the boat since they tend to become tunnel-visioned with their own concerns. Invention and revolutionary thought typically comes from smaller companies and groups of developers since they can devote all of their time to their single product or service and they have nothing to lose from venturing beyond the bounds of the known market. They can find the unserved portions of the market quicker and it makes more economic sense for them to do so. If they're smart, fast and lucky, their share of the market can grow quickly, making this previously untapped source more attractive to the big players. I'm sure everyone knows this already, but from personal experience I've seen this repeated many times.
In a primary election the top two vote-getters win, even if both don't make up half of everyone who voted. Apple doesn't have a majority of the mp3 market worldwide, but they -- by far -- have more saturation than any other single manufacturer or device. That's huge.
??? thought I made it clear I wasn't talking about pro level cards...????
Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to call you out for that. I do realize that you weren't talking about pro cards. However, if you compare the price of some of those pro cards (or even some outboard USB rigs) to Creative's stuff, you'll find that the prices aren't that different. So I'd still opt for a pro card over a Creative card even if only for home theatre or other consumer-level applications.
I was mainly just trying to point out that Creative's cards aren't all that high quality. Sure they look good when you compare them to the bottom of the barrel audio cards from manufacturers who are just trying to make a quick buck off people who simply purchase the cheapest card without regard to how it will sound. However, I'd think that people on an Apple focused message board would have an appreciation for well-designed, high-quality components.
Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to call you out for that. I do realize that you weren't talking about pro cards. However, if you compare the price of some of those pro cards (or even some outboard USB rigs) to Creative's stuff, you'll find that the prices aren't that different. So I'd still opt for a pro card over a Creative card even if only for home theatre or other consumer-level applications.
I was mainly just trying to point out that Creative's cards aren't all that high quality. Sure they look good when you compare them to the bottom of the barrel audio cards from manufacturers who are just trying to make a quick buck off people who simply purchase the cheapest card without regard to how it will sound. However, I'd think that people on an Apple focused message board would have an appreciation for well-designed, high-quality components.
Yeah, I took a look at that link you posted and they have some surprisingly inexpensive cards on there, though most are in the $500+ range.
Also, I honestly don't expect that many mac users would even buy a creative card. From what I've seen of recent macs (like for the last few years) the built in audio is pretty dang good... not sure what they are all capable of in terms of multi-channel.... but anyway, creative does have it's place, even if it's diminishing, amongst the PCs, with special emphasis on gamers, what with EAX.
Every since Creative bought out Cambridge Sound Works the quality has absolutely plummeted.
For the work I do the Cambridge form factors-- various flavors of satellite/sub set ups, including one that fits into a suitcase that doubles as the sub-- are just the thing. Cambridge was doing the satellite/sub thing long before it became ubiquitous in computer sound setups.
But under Creative they're just crap. Figure on six months, tops, before they just stop working. The inline volume control goes dead, or an internal connection in a speaker fails, or pretty much any interconnect is just marking time before it dies.
Back when Cambridge were first offering their inexpensive satellite/sub home speaker rigs they were very well built, and backed by a seemingly endless warranty. I brought a satellite to a brief lived Cambridge store in SF that was friggin 8 years old, and since they didn't make that particular flavor any more they just handed me a new pair of the current satellites.
But as a Creative subsidiary all that's gone. Shitty quality control, cheap ass components, average warranty.
Creative cards have never been all that good, so it's not surprising that Cambridge products have suffered. Creative is good at filling the needs of the "consumer who walks down to their local big-box technology store and buys the first component they see/know or are told by a commissioned salesperson will fit the bill". They know their target market and their entire board design, manufacturing process, and sales/support has been tailored to fit that. They're not going to be able to change just because they acquired a smaller company which targets a different market altogether. So it's not surprising that Cambridge's products have essentially changed to become like Creative's products.
Yeah, I took a look at that link you posted and they have some surprisingly inexpensive cards on there, though most are in the $500+ range.
Also, I honestly don't expect that many mac users would even buy a creative card. From what I've seen of recent macs (like for the last few years) the built in audio is pretty dang good... not sure what they are all capable of in terms of multi-channel.... but anyway, creative does have it's place, even if it's diminishing, amongst the PCs, with special emphasis on gamers, what with EAX.
A few years ago, Creative came out with a card for the Mac. They came to Macworld. but the card wasn't anything great. It didn't have all of the features of the PC cards they had, and Apple already had built-in high quality Stereo. I think it was a 5.1 card or something close, but it didn't allow recording (A/D conversion), one reason it didn't do well, so it was withdrawn after a while.
Creative cards have never been all that good, so it's not surprising that Cambridge products have suffered. Creative is good at filling the needs of the "consumer who walks down to their local big-box technology store and buys the first component they see/know or are told by a commissioned salesperson will fit the bill". They know their target market and their entire board design, manufacturing process, and sales/support has been tailored to fit that. They're not going to be able to change just because they acquired a smaller company which targets a different market altogether. So it's not surprising that Cambridge's products have essentially changed to become like Creative's products.
No, in their day they were very good. They were the first high quality cards for the PC. But then companies such as Turtle Beach upped the anty. But Creative set the standard, and most software worked best with them. slowly others dissappeared. Creative either bought them, or sued them out of existence, or their sales dried up.
With Inlel putting better sound on the board, the market shrunk.
So let's see... Creative gets a one-time cash influx that is tenths (hundreths?) of pennies on the dollar to the overall iPod market for Apple. Creative will start making accessories for its main competitor's ecomarket.
Ah, yeah.
Countdown to Creative exiting MP3 player market, anyone?
This works out well for both companies. Creative will most likely get out of the MP3 player arena and feed off of MS and Apple. With an Mpod somewhere in the future Creative will partner with both companies not to mention on the pc side their audio cards are the standard. Apple can put this behind them and concentrate on the OS issues for 2007 not to mention trying to take some of the hardware share of the market away from HP and Dell.
The biggest issues Apple has to face and I believe is going to hurt them is the cross platform issues they are now going to have with Office for Mac. Creative was the least of their problems.
I guess to make a portable device that plays compressed audio navigated with physical presses from a finger is soon going to be patented... just to end it once and for all.
Comments
Yeah, I thought it was interesting that SanDisk's world wide market share is so small. I would have thought that their focus on flash based players using their own kit would work well in global markets-- even better than the US.
It might have something to do with the deals SanDisk has made with US big box retailers that give them ample shelf space and mind share. Possibly the sales channels world wide are more diversified?
Possibly they don't market worldwide, or do so under some other names.
Many of tbe "others" are actually made by a few bigger manufacturers with different plastics, and names, for those local brands. I'd be interested to know just who those actual manufacturers are. I remember reading about a couple, but I forget the names, though one is S. Korean.
So do we end up with Apple, MS and SanDisk as the only A list manufacturers of stand alone MP3 players left (with any appreciable market share)?
Am I missing anyone?
I know I'm late on this, but I didn't see anyone call this ito question. MS as an MP3 player with appreciable market share? Do they have something out now with marketshare?
Sure, but the vast bulk of world wide MP3 player sales are dirt cheap, no-name low capacity flash players, which are unlikely to stage a concerted run on the iPod.
Apple still dwarfs the usual suspects, increasingly. I think the trend world wide is the same as the US, except for the world popularity of cheap 'n tiny flash players manufactured by dozens of small players ("other"). The personal computer/iPod combo is still wildly beyond the means of the vast majority of the world's peoples, but so are any other "mainstream" MP3 player.
During the opening of the French and British iTMS Jobs was claiming 52% world wide market share, whatever that means. It is true that iRiver has dropped out since the chart was made.
At any rate, you can see that Creative wasn't hanging onto international market share any better than US market share, and they're the next biggest after Apple, world wide. Without Creative the world market is basically Apple and "other". I can't see Apple offering anything that would compete with "other", but neither does "other" bode to capture the hearts and minds of Apples target demo.
Pacman!
Pacman!
lmao!
filler filler filler filler
Very weird. I figured the counter suits would have stopped everything.
You obviously don't know how patent law works:
Step 1: tons of tech companies patent thousands of things, many of which have already been patented or have been in use by other companies for a long time
Step 2: Company A outsells company B
Step 3: Company B gets pissed, spends a million dollars to find every patent company A is infringing upon (since they overlap most of the time, there's ALWAYS something), and sues company A.
Step 4: Company A does standard legal procedures, including finding patents Company B is infringing upon, sometimes including almost identical patents that were in the original suit, but filed by Company A instead of B.
Step 5: Both companies hold a staring contest and the first one who blinks gives out a tiny award and the lawyers from both sides go on a booze cruise.
It's standard operating procedure, which is what people don't understand. Successful tech companies keep large amounts of cash around because they KNOW they will be sued, likely frivilously, a few times per year. Less than successful companies sue the bigger ones all the time to get some quick cash. Otherwise, the big companies ignore the small ones because they're not worth suing.
And if you think that's bad, you should see the class action playbook. Oh man those guys are scum, the customer literally gets $10 and a handshake and the lawyers get 10 million dollars.
They are the only company that I know of who makes high quality audio cards for pcs.
High quality?
Only gamers use their audio cards -- any serious professional in the computer music industry stays as far away as possible. Ever tried running the output from a Creative soundcard into a high end soundsystem or mixing board and listening to the noise you get?
Firstly, 1/8" and RCA cables are horrible for medium to long runs (and no high end audio equipment uses them). Secondly, the component shielding needed to isolate audio signals from power lines is nonexistent on Creative cards.
A list of high quality PCI audio cards.
(notice that Creative Labs is nowhere to be found)
so you want to reduce the supply of lawyers.... <points to a chart on the wall illustrating the effects of supply and demand>
Thanks for doing that, someone needed to and I didn't have my chart with me yesterday
Thanks for doing that, someone needed to and I didn't have my chart with me yesterday
High quality?
Only gamers use their audio cards -- any serious professional in the computer music industry stays as far away as possible. Ever tried running the output from a Creative soundcard into a high end soundsystem or mixing board and listening to the noise you get?
Firstly, 1/8" and RCA cables are horrible for medium to long runs (and no high end audio equipment uses them). Secondly, the component shielding needed to isolate audio signals from power lines is nonexistent on Creative cards.
A list of high quality PCI audio cards.
(notice that Creative Labs is nowhere to be found)
Based on my small amount of experience in messing with audio equipment, you are 100% correct and I agree with you completely.
Also based on my small amount of experience in messing with audio equipment, Creative cards are an excelent choice for the budding amature who has a low budget and wants to start branching into digital music, composition, midi sequencing, etc. They provide an excelent hardware interface to do what Garage Band does on the Mac. They are also good for 7.1 channel gaming rigs, as you pointed out above, and for a not-too-expensive home theatre system with good audio fidelity.
I would never try to use one to make money, except maybe for sequencing where what comes out of my audio port is only heard by me. MIDI, MOD (ha, like we'll ever see THAT again!) or simple soundbite mixing.
So I aparently must have made an error of symantics. My apologies for the confusion.
*edit* oops!! There it is, hiding in the original post RIGHT BELOW THE LINE YOU QUOTED!!!
They are the only company that I know of who makes high quality audio cards for pcs. Ignoring super high end stuff of course. They make afordable cards for people who need more than integrated audio, but less than a $3000 pro audio card.
8)
*edit 2* oh, and yes, I have tried running audio out from my creative SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 X-Gamer to a high end sound system. And yes, there is noticiable noise.
You can't blame the lawyers for this though. I know they are an easy target. But before it gets to the lawyers, it has to be finished. As none of us know what was going on at Apple we can't say. The same thing happened, remember, with MS. Apple missed the boat there as well.
I know how these things happen. Larger companies often miss the boat since they tend to become tunnel-visioned with their own concerns. Invention and revolutionary thought typically comes from smaller companies and groups of developers since they can devote all of their time to their single product or service and they have nothing to lose from venturing beyond the bounds of the known market. They can find the unserved portions of the market quicker and it makes more economic sense for them to do so. If they're smart, fast and lucky, their share of the market can grow quickly, making this previously untapped source more attractive to the big players. I'm sure everyone knows this already, but from personal experience I've seen this repeated many times.
Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to call you out for that. I do realize that you weren't talking about pro cards. However, if you compare the price of some of those pro cards (or even some outboard USB rigs) to Creative's stuff, you'll find that the prices aren't that different. So I'd still opt for a pro card over a Creative card even if only for home theatre or other consumer-level applications.
I was mainly just trying to point out that Creative's cards aren't all that high quality. Sure they look good when you compare them to the bottom of the barrel audio cards from manufacturers who are just trying to make a quick buck off people who simply purchase the cheapest card without regard to how it will sound. However, I'd think that people on an Apple focused message board would have an appreciation for well-designed, high-quality components.
Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to call you out for that. I do realize that you weren't talking about pro cards. However, if you compare the price of some of those pro cards (or even some outboard USB rigs) to Creative's stuff, you'll find that the prices aren't that different. So I'd still opt for a pro card over a Creative card even if only for home theatre or other consumer-level applications.
I was mainly just trying to point out that Creative's cards aren't all that high quality. Sure they look good when you compare them to the bottom of the barrel audio cards from manufacturers who are just trying to make a quick buck off people who simply purchase the cheapest card without regard to how it will sound. However, I'd think that people on an Apple focused message board would have an appreciation for well-designed, high-quality components.
Yeah, I took a look at that link you posted and they have some surprisingly inexpensive cards on there, though most are in the $500+ range.
Also, I honestly don't expect that many mac users would even buy a creative card. From what I've seen of recent macs (like for the last few years) the built in audio is pretty dang good... not sure what they are all capable of in terms of multi-channel.... but anyway, creative does have it's place, even if it's diminishing, amongst the PCs, with special emphasis on gamers, what with EAX.
Every since Creative bought out Cambridge Sound Works the quality has absolutely plummeted.
For the work I do the Cambridge form factors-- various flavors of satellite/sub set ups, including one that fits into a suitcase that doubles as the sub-- are just the thing. Cambridge was doing the satellite/sub thing long before it became ubiquitous in computer sound setups.
But under Creative they're just crap. Figure on six months, tops, before they just stop working. The inline volume control goes dead, or an internal connection in a speaker fails, or pretty much any interconnect is just marking time before it dies.
Back when Cambridge were first offering their inexpensive satellite/sub home speaker rigs they were very well built, and backed by a seemingly endless warranty. I brought a satellite to a brief lived Cambridge store in SF that was friggin 8 years old, and since they didn't make that particular flavor any more they just handed me a new pair of the current satellites.
But as a Creative subsidiary all that's gone. Shitty quality control, cheap ass components, average warranty.
There, I feel better.
Yeah, I took a look at that link you posted and they have some surprisingly inexpensive cards on there, though most are in the $500+ range.
Also, I honestly don't expect that many mac users would even buy a creative card. From what I've seen of recent macs (like for the last few years) the built in audio is pretty dang good... not sure what they are all capable of in terms of multi-channel.... but anyway, creative does have it's place, even if it's diminishing, amongst the PCs, with special emphasis on gamers, what with EAX.
A few years ago, Creative came out with a card for the Mac. They came to Macworld. but the card wasn't anything great. It didn't have all of the features of the PC cards they had, and Apple already had built-in high quality Stereo. I think it was a 5.1 card or something close, but it didn't allow recording (A/D conversion), one reason it didn't do well, so it was withdrawn after a while.
Creative cards have never been all that good, so it's not surprising that Cambridge products have suffered. Creative is good at filling the needs of the "consumer who walks down to their local big-box technology store and buys the first component they see/know or are told by a commissioned salesperson will fit the bill". They know their target market and their entire board design, manufacturing process, and sales/support has been tailored to fit that. They're not going to be able to change just because they acquired a smaller company which targets a different market altogether. So it's not surprising that Cambridge's products have essentially changed to become like Creative's products.
No, in their day they were very good. They were the first high quality cards for the PC. But then companies such as Turtle Beach upped the anty. But Creative set the standard, and most software worked best with them. slowly others dissappeared. Creative either bought them, or sued them out of existence, or their sales dried up.
With Inlel putting better sound on the board, the market shrunk.
Heh heh.
So let's see... Creative gets a one-time cash influx that is tenths (hundreths?) of pennies on the dollar to the overall iPod market for Apple. Creative will start making accessories for its main competitor's ecomarket.
Ah, yeah.
Countdown to Creative exiting MP3 player market, anyone?
This works out well for both companies. Creative will most likely get out of the MP3 player arena and feed off of MS and Apple. With an Mpod somewhere in the future Creative will partner with both companies not to mention on the pc side their audio cards are the standard. Apple can put this behind them and concentrate on the OS issues for 2007 not to mention trying to take some of the hardware share of the market away from HP and Dell.
The biggest issues Apple has to face and I believe is going to hurt them is the cross platform issues they are now going to have with Office for Mac. Creative was the least of their problems.
Sheesh.. all these patents.. it's crazy..