Creative Technology, makers of the Zen portable media player, is struggling. The company, which delisted from the Nasdaq earlier this year, posted Q1 2008 (through Sept 30th) sales of $185 million. That’s down 24% since last year. Income was actually up for the quarter, though, which the company attributes to improvements in operations. Apple saw [...]

Microsoft’s Zune has¬†failed to become an iPod-killer, but it may be a Zen-killer. Creative Technology, which entered the digital music player market in 1999, is feeling the heat of increased competition between Apple and Microsoft for the protable media player market. The company has¬†posted a wider fourth-quarter loss, and its¬†shares fell to an 11-year low. [...]

A prescient email by a senior Microsoft executive shows that there were concerns in 2003 about Microsoft-based portable media players “sucking”, to the point that partnering with Apple was considered. Microsoft’s Jim Allchin was so distraught by his user experience with partner digital music devices on the market in 2003 that he considered calling Steve [...]

Last week, when some experts wondered if reports of the Zune’s demise were premature, we called the Zune’s introduction a debacle and asked if the Zune should be shot out of a cannon. It may be time to get that cannon ready. Sales of the Zune sank last week, dropping Microsoft’s portable media player from [...]

Creative Technology today introduced the Creative ZEN Vision W portable video, photo and MP3 player that features a high resolution, 4.3-inch, 16:9 format, color widescreen TFT display. “We designed the Creative ZEN Vision W with a stunning 16:9-format widescreen and 30GB or 60GB capacity to be the most compelling portable video player and photo viewer [...]

Apple has agreed to pay Creative Technology $100 million dollars to settle all legal disputes between the two companies, and for a license to use Creative’s recently awarded “Zen” patent in all Apple products.US Patent 6,928,433 covers “A method, performed by software executing on the processor of a portable music playback device, that automatically files [...]