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Technology Stocks : Creative Labs (CREAF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis G. who wrote (12328)	9/24/1998 12:15:00 AM
From: Nazbuster	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13925

Total and complete rejection of CREAF's business model, and utter contempt for their CEO. I still have a large holding of CREAF, but I'm now looking back at all my disasters for 1998 and see a pattern in my mistakes. Regarding CREAF, I think we are living in the past and missing the obvious: CREAF was the beneficiary of having the best sound card on the market when having sound on a computer was a novelty. "SoundBlaster" became a household name like "kleenex" or "clorox". (Who says "bleach"?). People were flocking in droves to buy computers. If their budget permitted, they bought a sound card. Later, the OEM's simply packaged them with the box. What's the incentive to buy CREAF sound products today? Only a small percentage of computer users are the kind of serious "gamers" or sound enthusiasts who go out of their way to buy premium sound equipment. Everyone I know just lives with the "no-name" card in the box and moderately priced speakers. Video has some well respected competition. DVD likewise. Unless CREAF creates a product line which is universally practical, essential, affordable and has very wide appeal and demand, I think the company will forever be a niche player and will have a hard time growing revenues like they did in the past. Don't get me wrong; I think the products are fantastic. It's just that the company is now selling to a small segment of the market it used to address. Unless they get massive OEM support for sound and video, how are they going to make a big splash?