Creative beats rivals with Zen media centre
In what is a world coup, Singaporeans will be first to buy device
By Natalie Soh
HOME-GROWN Creative Technology has stolen a march on its rivals and has launched its Zen Portable Media Centre (PMC).
This makes it the first handheld gadget to play music and movies on Microsoft's 'iPod killer' software, beating the likes of South Korean brands Samsung and iRiver to launch the device on the worldwide market.
In a nod to Singapore, Creative chief executive Sim Wong Hoo will let Singaporeans have the first chance to see, touch and, yes, buy the Zen PMC at the Comex Fair, which will be held at the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Suntec City, from today until Sunday.
Microsoft has been working with a host of manufacturing partners to develop PMC devices, but it was Creative that stole the show at the Las Vegas International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, where it got the vote of Microsoft chief Bill Gates as well as capturing the Best of CES Award in the portable audio and video category.
Since then, buyers have been eagerly anticipating the Zen PMC. In an interview with The Straits Times yesterday, Mr Sim said the 'tens of thousands' of devices produced for the launch will 'barely scratch the surface' of the pent-up demand.
Mr Sim has a happy problem at hand: Buyers from the United States, Europe and Asia are all putting down orders for the device - which Mr Sim fondly calls his new baby - and he has to decide who gets it first.
His enthusiasm is evident as he explains the specifications of the Zen PMC, which was designed from scratch in Singapore.
It can play and store up to 85 hours of video, 9,000 songs and tens of thousands of photos on its 20GB hard drive. It automatically converts files and supports 10 formats - so you can safely port wma, mp3, mpeg, wav and avi files.
Said Mr Sim: 'I am the sort who wants to watch the movies on the big screen, but the response has surprised even me. People want to store their music, their photos.'
Best of all, he said, even sceptics are converted.
'Once I tell my non-techie friends you can put your photos in it and take it to your mother-in-law's place, the decision to buy is made!' he chuckled.
While the launch of the Zen PMC is a coup for Creative and Singapore, the bigger picture is the PMCs herald a bigger revolution in the movie industry.
With movie players in everyone's hands, like the now ubiquitous MP3 player, the idea is you can download movies from the Net, just as has happened in the music industry.
Of course, the movie will have to be in a highly compressed form, so it doesn't take hours to download, and there has to be political will from the big boys in the movie world.
But there are positive signs. For instance, Mr Sim said he has to fill thousands of orders from the movie studios - indicating strong interest on their part as to how best to use PMCs to get more people to buy movies.
'It's a brand new way to reach consumers, and if they don't maximise it, people will find a way to rip movies and put them into the players. It will happen. We give people the convenience, and they will want the content to go with that.'
With the Zen PMC, Creative has marked its territory in the digital entertainment market. It already has a slew of personal music players, and soon 'whenever someone thinks digital entertainment, they are going to think Creative. We will be No. 1'.
And no, this is not marketing-speak, insisted Mr Sim. Putting his money where his mouth is, he is spending on both audio and graphic technologies, including a graphics card that can run at 1,000 times the computing power of a Pentium chip.
As he put it: 'The PC world, you name it - Dell, HP, Microsoft - are all aiming to bring the PC into the living room. The PC will bring digital entertainment that can be downloaded or you can make home movies. It's not going to be this work tool in the study any more. And we are the ones who will provide the ammo for these tech big boys for them to start this invasion.'
You can see the Zen PMC at the Comex Fair, which is on at the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Suntec City, from today until Sunday. Instead of the recommended price of $999, Comex visitors can buy the Zen PMC at $899. The fair is open from 12.30pm to 9pm daily.
