Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Creative/Apple Settle Lawsuits - Creative Exiting DAP Marketplace?
Posted by Jeremy Charette in "NEWS" @ 03:15 PM
"Apple and Creative Technology today announced a broad settlement to end all legal disputes between the two companies. Apple said it will pay Creative $100 million for a license to use Creative’s recently awarded patent in all Apple products. The companies also announced that Creative has joined Apple’s “Made for iPod” program and will be announcing their own iPod accessories later this year."
Is this the first step to Creative exiting the DAP marketplace? Or is this just a move designed to give them inroads to the growing (and incredibly profitable) iPod accessory space? Creative seems to be Apple's strongest competitor, both in terms of hardware and software interface, so rumors of their exit seem to be somewhat unfounded. Further complicating speculation is Microsoft's coming Zune player(s). Some major shifts are happening in the DAP arena, it'll be very interesting to see how the next 6 months plays out.
Is this the first step to Creative exiting the DAP marketplace? Or is this just a move designed to give them inroads to the growing (and incredibly profitable) iPod accessory space? Creative seems to be Apple's strongest competitor, both in terms of hardware and software interface, so rumors of their exit seem to be somewhat unfounded. Further complicating speculation is Microsoft's coming Zune player(s). Some major shifts are happening in the DAP arena, it'll be very interesting to see how the next 6 months plays out.
