dam that suck for the share holder, but creative has to advertise to the American public if they want some dam business

seriously. its like they actually dont understand why they cant sell in amerca, but if they would just pull their head out of their you know whats and start putting up some commercials (like the ones that are right on their players!!) they would probably beat out Apple and Microsoft over night.

blah, i've kind of lost hope of seeing an X-Fi dap

they just need to invest a little money towards advertising and they would at least a dollar a share

but last qtr the loss was at something like 24mil, so 19's a tad better...

at the focus on flash players...

I don't have a problem with flash, but I refuse to buy a flash player until they become 30+ GB. (which may be within the next couple years actually).
16 GB just isn't enough for me.

You know, I think I'm going to make some flyers for Creative and put them up. lol

I'm wondering if because of this news if now is the time to purchase a 60GB Zen Vision M, seeing as Creative wants to focus now on flash players? My 30GB ZVM is almost full with less than 1GB left.

what Illmatic and Pam said. 16gb would not be sufficient for me, i only have 3 gigs left on my 30gig zen. But, maybe there getting the picture, people here in the US usually go for the things that were on Tv (iPod, Zune) than for things that are in most electronic stores, but NO advertising whatsover. if i hadnt discovered the Zen Line by Creative, id be listening to an iPod right now. i mean, even PAYING bestbuy, Circuit City, Walmart to advertise for them in store (like the big signs MS payed walmart to display when the Zune because available. )

but are your players actually full of music or videos?

in the past flash player have mostly only worked with audio and therefore high capacities weren't an issue for MOST people.

though i do agree that for some people (read: audiophiles) even 60gb isn't enough

WELL.. it is a little better actually..
But Not GOOD enough..
They launched 2 new players (stone and Stone Plus) since the previous results and its just a little difference !

I Personally DONT like the the Apple and Creative Deal.
Neither Do I like Apple selling Creative technologies and Creative allowing other companies integrating them !

X-Fi should be something solely to Creative so that They can maximize all the potential it has (player wise and in other devices), and maybe after that let other companies participate.
[You know Apple is really clever ]

And....
THE ZEN V PLUS IS NOT A PLAYER TO CARRY YOUR WHOLE MUSIC LIBRARY WITH YOU !
I BET YOU PEOPLE Dont Even listen to Half (or even 1/4ths ) of your music !
Thats cause it's meant to be like that !!
If I clean up my ZVM with the files i really would listen to some day.. and the ones I can go on without listening.. 16 GB would be more ! Plus most of the space would be with High Res pics and Videos.....

Creative should just Advertise.. Advertise.. and Advertise.. !

Tell me guys,
How many people apart from us Zennists (and a couple of others) know that a 16 GB player has been announced and its of great value for the features and the built quality you get.. .???


In Tech Blogs, Rumors have made big big pages under Apple's maybe new 16 GB player..


Anyways...
I agree with ashxcore.. WE should do sumthing

i agree with everyone that they need to advertise....i wish they would advertise more. their players overall are great, the zen vision m being in my opinion one of the best ever produced in the audio player marker, but hardly much advertising went on. it really frustrates me when they dont seem to try and push sales by some sort of major marketing campaign.

Creative is abandoning a core market in HD based players. Many of whom live at this website are ZVM owners. There has to be a reason why Apple can sell a two codec hit at almost twice the price and Creative can't sell a similar form factor multi-codec PMP (ZVM) at nearly half the price and still make money. This is a failure of "execution" of a business plan. Granted, the US economy is in a bit of a slump, but the problem is consumers are relatively uneducated SHEEP. Why have they been buying products that cost more, of inferior quality, and do less for them than others? If creative can't figure that out then many of us will be looking to other makers for our next players (no, not apple).

Let me know when they get up to 80gb flash players! Because 60gb isn't even enough anymore. Flash is just not keeping up with mini HD.. mini HD density will push 200gb (while 3.5" desktops push past 1tb). Flash will be stuck at the sub 100gb mark for nearly 5 years, plenty of breathing room left in mini-HD technology.

Creative needs to give customers a REASON to choose their brand again! Most consumers remember them as the sound card maker whom allowed themselves to slip into obsolescence. If Apple can rise like the Phoenix to cult status, what is Creative waiting for? A buyout by a deep pocketed white knight? Intel? Samsung? another flash memory maker? Many companies have their own problems right now so this isn't likely.

For those who are interested in the Conference Call, the link of the transcript is HERE .

And, 30GB+ for Flash based is possible, the only problem is price.

There will be X-Fi DAP in the pipeline.
[ edited Aug 08 (2007) 08:10AM ]

i remember this last year and i suggested that someone make a petition to send to creative with signatures from all epizenter members who strongly URGE creative to advertise in the U.S. and nobody here liked my idea and said it wouldent make any difference, it wouldent work, etc.. but now people are still saying the same thing over and overand over and creative doesnt have a clue why the U.S. sales are down. duh! i think they need to see the supporters they do have in the U.S. to help push them to make commercials, ads, etc.. i bet if they ran that panda ad on U.S. tv, they would see an increase in sales almost immediately! it's such a different commercial that really would stand out on U.S. tv. it's so weird and different, it makes the "hip" ipod commercials look very boring.

See the thing about all you people screaming for advertising is that WoM is much much much more powerful. Creative does NO advertising in Europe, period, yet they are well known and well respected, this is because word has gotten around that Creative make great DAP's and have a great Customer Care service.
Obviously cultural differences play a major here and so I can understand all these cries for advertising. It seems the average American is more effected by what they see on the TV, hence the Paris Hilton phenomenon, than what they hear from their peers, or on the other spectrum, they listen to their peers but their peers just go by what they see on TV.
One thing is for sure, most of the best TV comes from America and since Americans are so influenced by it perhaps Creative should advertise on that medium, but TV advertising is very expensive and from Creatives POV, why through more money down the drain?

If Creatives American sales do not pick up I can see them officially leaving the region, of course you'd be able to buy their products on line, they just would not be supported. Sad times ahead unless something happens.

Creative needs to do more adversting in the US. Advertise in newspapers and magazines. I'm constantly seeing TV advertisements for the iPod

Some ideas:
- Why their player is better than the iPod
- do a marketing blitz - trade in your iPod for a Zen

America is so obsessed with the iPod, that they don't give Creative a chance. Because of poor sales, companies don't make accessories for the Zen, just the iPod.

[ edited Aug 08 (2007) 08:43AM ]

It's clear why Creative is bombing -- they don't have a strong content partner. You ZVM owners are smart, imaginative and skilled enough to fill your players with movies, shows, DRM-free music and photos, but 99 percent of the population can't or won't do it.

I hope they make inroads in being a "preferred player" for Amazon's new music/movie download service.

16 GB is just not enough and to be honest. If it ever becomes as thin as say a motrola razr or a ipod. It better feel good as i find holding either the razr or Ipod to be the most uncomfortable thing ever. The zen is really not that heavy or that hard to carry around. Sheesh!

Also Creative has other areas other than mp3 players. How's their sound card division and what not going. Is there mp3 player market really suffering that much to not turn over a profit?

Yeah, I'm strongly considering upgrading to the 60GB ZVM (fatty version, not willing to pay the premium for the slim import) and giving my daughter my pink 30GB ZVM for this reason, Zensen.

im kinda pissed that they plan on fasing out the hd players

this is what made me stop buying from Iriver and going to creative

personally i dont like flash players at the moment

the limited amount of space is what turns me off
even 16gbs isnt enough for me though

but i dont just buy a mp3 player to listen to music i want to whole expeience

and it seems flash players offer poor video support in my opinion

i also think creatives problem is they have too many players

i know its good to offer choices but in there situation as a business they need to focus on a handful of really good DAPs and advertising

apple didnt sell all there ipods from word of mouth

except now the entire market is trending to flash players. the capacity is now there for bigger flash players.

This is WHAT CREATIVE SHOULD FOCUS ON.
Zen Vision:M, Zen V Plus, Zen Stone. all the others are in a market thats EXTREMELY saturated (Zen nano, Stone Plus, Muvo line). And Dominic is right, people here in the US tend to go for things that are on Tv than for things that arent, even though they are better. if Creative cant afford Tv advertising, what about MAJOR newspapers and Magazines? (Sacramento Bee here in Ca, New york Times, and others) and even try doing street teams (hire people give em supplies to go out and let me test them out, advertise for them, set up booths around the Us, make them all colorful and shiny (i would go for it if was just shiny ) They really need to do some serious firing in the marketing department, and the design department, if they phase out there HD line, im out. i not only use my Vision:m for music, but also for video, i have 3 gigs left out of 30 gig ZVM, i want a 60gig so i can fit ALL my content, and it wouldn't fit then since i have tons of movies on my computer)
They need to make there commercials/ads SIMPLE, simple for those non tech savvy people, like the Ipod commercials, you dont see them advertising there battery and specs. just a bunch of cool colors and shadows. (i agree, the panda one, the Zen Stone ads are GREAT ONES, there fun, (Stone one if hip) color ful, and a cute panda! they need to make there players appeal to ALL crowds.

I seriously doubt phasing out the HD players would be a good business strategy.

This is bad that they're looking to phase out HD players. I for one cannot imagine using something like the ZVW, since it's too video-centric for me, and flash players just don't have the capacity to cut it. I'm definitely not a happy camper.

d.

i would be a happy camper IF they released a 30+gig flash player.

Yeah, thinking about it. If one of their upcoming flash players had similar specs to the current ZVM -- good video format support, pictures, USB hosting, screen size -- with at least 30GB capacity, then I'd be a happy camper too.

d.

I wouldn't upgrade for a 32gig flash player. Yes, ideally I want flash (despite the slow speed synching), but what I really want is more capacity. Unless the next gen zen takes me to 64gb flash, or much higher on an HDD, then I'm going to have to go with the next gen iPod.

64 gb flash man that would be sweet

If it were a 16 or 32 GB flash-based ZVM replacement that could be expanded with SDHC (with 8 GB cards currently on the market and 16 GB cards on the horizon), I would be interested. If it had traditional DAP dimensions, the full-sized cards could fit while keeping capacities high and costs low. It would need to be able to play content off of the card though (not like the CF on the ZVW).

why they blame the Zune when Apple is beating them to the pulp ?
Come on, Creative. There are more players than Apple and Microsoft on the DAP market. Sandisk is giving the America populace a run for their money.

Because Zune has taken over their spot in the HD market, while iPods have not. Those looking for an iPod alternative in stores like Best Buy/Circuit City would more than likely get a ZVM in the past, but now they'd be more likely to get a Zune. There aren't many other competitors in the HD market that have actually reached major retailers like those three. The only other player I've seen is Archos, and they're not exactly competing for the #2 spot in HD's like Creative and Microsoft are.
[ edited Aug 09 (2007) 02:47PM ]

Microsoft will not only release Zune in Europe, they will release flash player sooner or later. I hope Creative make a more *creative* excuse when that date arrive.

Hypothetically, if we were to make our own ads/fliers for Creative's products, posting them on bulletin boards at school, telephone lines, hanging them on abandoned buildings (whoops, that's just for inner-city folks, like me! XD), etc. the sales could increase.

It would be like a revolution of sorts...

*rallies for the cause*

Maybe some of us would make the news! Tearing down Apple's empire an ad/flier at a time!!

Blame it one the Zune?!
WTF! Creative has only themselves to blame for not differentiating their product from the competition. How much money did Creative spend on advertising, promotions, and product placement? A mere drop in the bucket compared to the competition, many of whom already have long standing relationships with the consumer..

What this may mean is that the technology will become too expensive to make a profit in the ZVM form factor so the players will have to get bigger (ZVW) to become more feature rich.. (wifi, xfi, touchscreen, browser capable, maybe even gps). If this is where Creative is heading, it may be fort the best, but I'll have to make my decision whether to stick with a creative product or select their competition 2008-2009 (when I'll be due for another one).




BTW: the price cuts for the ZVM all the way to $149 were a suicidal move which didn't gain Creative market share... (you only cut prices when your prepared to release a NEW PRODUCT version or your competition does first) Especially when Creative is competing with two DEEP POCKETED companies: Apple and Microsoft... Sandisk is no slouch either... (#3 behind Toshiba, Samsung)

also it would be nice if Creative will make HD players slimmer