The mother board threat is real. It's possible that CREAF will wind-up supplying the mother-board solution, though - but that is yet to be seen. (They do have a chip designed specifically for this.)
I do not think we have to worry about the sound function going into the CPU chip in the near future - it is still going to be a separate chip.
The Soundblaster is actually quite antiquated - I would only rate it "adaquate". The DMA structure imposes a fairly high CPU overhead vs newer designs. Creative's new PCI chip (currently only offered as a motherboard solution) is fairly state-of-the-art, though. But the current Soundblaster cards are dinosaurs. They HAVE improved the sound quality to the point where it is very close to that of good home stereos, though, and thus they are actually able to take advantage of the Cambridge speakers they are now marketing.
But Turtle Beach (Pinnacle card) still beats Soundblaster hands-down on both sound quality and efficiency (CPU overhead), as they always have. But this comes at considerable expense, and the board is less-widely supported.
Creative is responding to the threat, though, through diversification. The best news out of the earnings report was that they have broadened their revenue sources considerably. I would expect to DVD, speakers, and new unannounced developments (acquisitions?) to play a bigger and bigger role.
If you are looking to sound card revenues to propel CREAF into the future, you are missing the point. Fortunately, Creative hasn't. |
