Creative's name describes CEO
40 minutes ago
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Sim Wong Hoo wants to make watching movies and TV on a portable device as common as listening to MP3 tunes on a jog.
Sim is founder and CEO of Singapore-based Creative Technology (news - web sites), best known for bringing quality stereo sound to the PC with its Sound Blaster audio card and popular Nomad Jukebox MP3 players.
Next up: a portable audio/video digital device that plays music and movies and displays photographs.
Later this summer, Creative will introduce the $499 Creative Zen Portable Media Center, a category that's a top priority for Microsoft. The software giant is working with Creative and others on the devices.
Similar portable audio/video products have been out since last year from RCA and France's Archos, but reviewers have complained of complicated steps to get video onto the devices.
Sim, 48, says his Zen "gets it right."
Apple CEO Steve Jobs (news - web sites) is often asked about doing a video iPod, and says there's no market for it. Sim says he was a skeptic at first, too, but has come to realize that a handheld device that can store digital photos, music and eliminate the need to carry stacks of DVDs "offers a lot of convenience."
While pricey initially, he says, the costs of a full-featured video/music player will eventually be similar to a top-of-the-line MP3 player.
"Why not get the one with video then? cell phones with color screens aren't something that people need, but they sure buy them," he says.
Starting with sound
- which included paper-and-hand tricks to amuse kids.
He built the $700 million Creative into the No. 2 player after Apple in hard drive-based MP3 players. Walk into any big-box retailer, or do an online search for "PC speakers," and you're likely to be confronted by its small speaker sets under the Creative or Cambridge SoundWorks names.
Not bad for a company that began in 1981 as a Singapore computer repair shop.
While behind the counter, Sim came up with an add-on memory box for the Apple II computer, which he started selling from the shop. Its success encouraged him to market his own PC, one that "could talk, speak and sing Chinese, play some music, all sorts of crazy things," he recalls.
Prospective buyers liked the audio aspects best. Back then, PC audio was dinky little sounds heard on video games. Sim removed his audio circuit board, and decided to come to the USA to try selling it. He rented a garage in Silicon Valley and started knocking on doors. RadioShack's Tandy division put him on the map with his first big sale.
Creative has sold about 200 million Sound Blasters since, and claims a 93% market share of sound cards - all the more impressive in that it's a product people had to install themselves by opening the back of their PCs.
"We hired good tech support to walk people through it," Sim says.
Hewlett-Packard (news - web sites) and Dell now offer the Sound Blaster as standard equipment on many PCs. Creative has solved the installation problem with an external Sound Blaster that plugs into USB ports.
For years, Creative - traded on the Nasdaq exchange - was totally dependent on Sound Blasters. At one time, it represented 70% of revenue. But across-the-board growth in MP3 player sales has helped level the field. Creative says its MP3 sales rose 151% in the most recent quarter. Sound Blaster cards now are 24% of sales, to 33% for MP3 players. Creative also makes Dell's MP3 player, the Dell DJ.
Creative competes with Apple by selling players that are less expensive and offer more storage. The $239 Nomad Zen Extra, for instance, has a 30-gigabyte hard drive, which can hold about 8,000 songs; the hot-selling entry-level $299 iPod has 15 gigabytes.
Dreaming things up
Sim spends most of his time in Asia ("China is about to explode," he says) and only comes here once a quarter. He checks in with his U.S. division President Craig McHugh at 5 p.m. California time, then they have a second chat after McHugh puts his kids to bed at home.
When meeting with Sim, "you have to stay really focused," says Ron Edgerton, CEO of Austin-based SigmaTel, which makes components for Creative's MP3 players. "He has so many thoughts coming, he's going 100 miles an hour."
Sim is on the board of THX, a spinoff of director George Lucas' Lucasfilm entertainment company that specializes in sound. "He's so technical, and I'm not," says Lucasfilm Chief Operating Officer Micheline Chau, who sits with Sim on the THX board. "He's always coming up with different ways of tackling the same issue. How do I turn this problem or issue upside down?"
Sim even thinks about such things while sleeping.
One morning, he called McHugh after waking from a dream that he could teach the world how to play the piano. He told of his idea: a computer keyboard that doubled as a piano.
"If everyone could have that for the price of a keyboard, everyone would be able to share it with kids and make music," McHugh recalls Sim saying.
A few months later, he unveiled the $99.99 combo PC/piano keyboard Prodikeys. Sales were better in the dream. The product has underperformed, but he hasn't given up on it.
Rolling with ideas
An avid bike rider in Singapore, he tired of having to wear headphones. He came up with the $69.99 TravelSound MP3 battery-powered tiny speakers. As has Prodikeys, that product has also been a tough sell.
"I know my tastes cannot be imposed on other people, but I'm always trying," he says.
The MuVo, one of Creative's biggest hits, came from a traditional office meeting in Singapore. Edgerton showed new internal MP3 circuitry SigmaTel designed that could dramatically reduce the size of an MP3 player. "His eyes lit up," Edgerton recalls. "He saw the ability to have a player 1/16th the size of the leading products of the time with four times the battery life. On the spot, he said, 'We're going to do a product with it, but we don't know what it is.' "
Four months later, Creative introduced the first of its MuVo MP3 players. The size of a pinky, it could double as an MP3 player and external storage device, something there hadn't been before. (Similar products have since been developed by other vendors.) Creative has sold nearly 1 million.
But more important, his nieces, who test all his products, approved.
"They didn't really like anything we did, until the MuVo," says Sim, who is single.
And that makes him really happy.
