You are never too old to be what you might have been - George (Mary) Eliot (Evans)
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What next for Creative?
THE STORY OF Creative Technology, aka Creative Labs, is an interesting one. A young audio enthusiast, Sim Wong Hoo, with a few friends, didn't at the time (mid-80s) get the support to set up shop in Singapore creating the stuff that would bring some real sound to the PCs, so he jumped over to the other end of the Pacific, just south of San Francisco. There he got all the support and the rest is, well, history.
However, the idea of super sound combining high Hi-Fi quality and local audo processing power to handle effects, conversions and such without engaging the CPU much, crystallised in PCs only in mid-90s. Remember the Sound Blaster AWE, Aureal and Turtle Beach cards? Followed then by Nvidia's excellent SoundStorm - abandoned afterwards unfortunately, yet another "un-smart" decision by the Green Goblin. And keeping in mind that, even in 1985, Commodore Amiga already had sound processing that leaves most PC on board stuff in the dust - even today.
Fast forward to today: the Sound Blaster X-Fi family, out now for some two years, still has unmatched processing power. The missing effects like the Dolby stuff, plus better amplifiers and other componentry, were then added by third party vendors like Auzentech from Korea. MSI, on their side, includes X-Fi Extreme on their Nforce 790i Ultra mobo competitor to the Asus Striker II Extreme shown here today.
But then, the Vista migration was un utter nightmare for Creative. For a variety of reasons ranging from Vista's screwed-up direct audio layer to licensing issuse for pieces of code to run on Vista, Creative's Vista drivers became a hodge-podge of half-working stuff, where the critical part - full audio acceleration and offload using the X-Fi processor instead of CPU, wasn't addressed well.
We all know the Daniel_K story and his handmade improved Vista drivers for both X-Fi and Audigy, as well as Creative's recent angry jump to remove those drivers - even though, well, these gave Creative users a solution that Creative didn't. And yes, Creative had a legal avenue to try to stop him but, well above that, it has an obligation to support its customers properly.
OK, what now? Forget about technical details for the moment. Creative is now in a horrible PR nightmare, and enthusiast customer market losses are inevitable. Also, Asus, now the biggest competitor with its sexy but DSP-less Xonars, is nibbling away at Creative's market share, and it does all that Dolby and DTS surround sound.
First, Creative either has to fix its driver portfolio, especially Linux and Vista. In parallel, they should work out a deal with Daniel to at least let the users have an alternative, besides getting out of that self made PR quagmire - after all, they are after selling those X-Fi cards, isn't it? Making up with Daniel is just the start here.
Second, they have to define a clear, committed roadmap for the X-Fi. The EMU20K chip for PCI-E, where is it - and yes we know about the PCI-E latency problems? Many of the acquisitions Creative did often ended up without the key people staying in - making it harder to continue the designs then. But, if they want market to continue buying X-Fi, the future prospect for the platform must be made clear.
Third, Creative has to decide what do they really want to do: Sound hardware standard? The company was built on that, and its brand strenght is by far the greatest there.
Multimedia players? Every shop in Guangdong province can put up one - only Apple has the brand advantage there to sell even total c**p at double the price.
3D graphics? Creative had a team from 3DLabs, after old Silicon Graphics probably the best profi 3-D chip design team around - ask Nvidia if, even today, they can match 3DLabs hardware lighting. Again, when the returns didn't come quick enough, the effort ended up wasted, with its protagonists feeding, maybe, the Larrabee now?
Video conferencing? Yeah, interesting market: but free video versions of Skype and such, coupled with prevalent broadband in many places, are a serious future - and, maybe, present - threat there.
In my mind, Creative should focus on the market where it's brand is worth the most, which is high-quality, high-speed PC audio processors, even if they end up as mainboard audio chips instead of cards. Still fine for Creative - they could sell millions each quarter!
Alternative is to, maybe, continue messing up with MP3 players and such. In that case, why not offload the whole Sound Blaster business to someone taking it seriously, and willing to get back the lost EMU, Aureal and other resources who helped build that quality?
Auzentech could be a good partner, but they may not have size to back it up. Who else then?
Two choices loom: one is Asus merging the Xonar and Sound Blaster lines into one superb product range wih both processing power, effects, audio quality and full range of surround sound standards implemented in there. Even if other vendors don't take them, Asus' tens of millions of mainboard units could set it as a quasi-standard by implementing a SKU, cheaper or faster, on the various mobo price ranges while keeping the binary and driver compatibility.
Another approach is for Intel to get the X-Fi for their future Nehalem PC chipsets as the audio engine. After all, some of Nehalem I/O bridges are even called "processors" with higher overhead offload locally - this sound engine would fit that approach too. And then, the driver and software support issues would be far less likely.
Either way, full DSP-based PC audio would be consolidated, andhave a clear long term future. We need them to stay around, as independent sound processing is a critical part of the overall "intelligent I/O" for the PCs of the future.
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I loved my old SB16, then AWE64 Gold, then SB Live! Gold. I used to swear by CL's name. Then XP came and Creative did not want to support my Live card. When they did make the drivers, they wanted me to pay again for the drivers. Later they made the drivers free to download, but removed them from the page. They say my card is End of Life, and won't let me grab the XP drivers. It's good to be a pirate, I have grabbed them from a torrent.

I can live with them not making Live drivers for Vista, but pulling old drivers? Go to hell. For some reason, Vista said my card was good to go, and yet can't install any generic drivers for it. If I grab the drivers for the EMU chip, I get a BSOD. No matter, I have AC'97 and it's good enough.

I did try www.kxproject.com for Vista. Same problem, BSOD. Tried on Vista 64 and have given up. At this point I plan to remove the SB Live the next time I open my case and just use AC'97. 

I am looking to Asus with great interest.
what? you dicktionary? 

12 years old kid and bad grammar

1) said by who, only native english speaker can post here? if i post my comment in any language other then english, can you read it smart one, NO right? dicktionary, thats what i thought, STFU.

2) are you 3 years old? do you want a lolipop? would you feel better? want to suck on something?

3) nonsense? of what? nor Intel or Asus need to buy CL, give us reason whats good to do that, dicktionary. oh let me guess, thats right, we must have different text book, you must be one of those American thinking Columbus "discover" america, how can you discover millions of people? base on that, you are nonsense, since you're mentally challenge, i will just skip your further comments, dicktionary.

To Paul, ask this Christian guy "dicktionary", to define: donation, its a FREAKING choice, not forcing you to pay, if you don't want to.

Why don't the A/V receiver boys such as Denon get this AIB/chip game? They've obviously got the state of the art pieces, expertise, and licenses.
This could be just some of the Intel innovation that Otelini's looking for (presently in mobile chips).
If you are interested, you can follow the facts there:
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=116332
242 pages of angry customers at that time, and still growing.

Creative should at least consider changing its drivers policy.

Note: the first post was heavily modified by the forum moderator, but you can easily find the first version on the web.
What's up with the 12 year old assault of bad grammar and total nonsense? The rant about the church somehow being involved gets points for creativity anyways. 

I would be so happy if either Intel or ASUS bought them out - both companies with drivers I respect for being solid (if not necessarily being regular on updates, but if they work first time, why do you need them?) Terribly disappointed in the drivers for my X-Fi (poor quality sound, crackling, and when I run Vista all the features I paid good money for aren't there.) 

I think this current fiasco will be the nail in the coffin for Creative - and I can't say I'm gonna miss them. This after 5+ Creative cards since (and including) the original Sound Blaster.
I just wanted to straighten out that it wasn't the fact that Creative wanted Daniel to stop supporting the audio drivers, it was the fact that he was requesting donations.
If it's free, might worth the time for Asus to consider it.
Judged by the latest software DSP development, and ever powerful CPU, I really doubt the value of Creative DSP in the future.

Creative needs to die. 

Then a competent firm might buy the remains in the bankruptcy auction and gave money left over to actually do something with it, along with the Aurel patents Creative is just sitting on.
While creative soundcard hw has been mostly fine, the company drivers and support were always a nightmare, even before vista.

As an example, if reinstalled the system with an Audigy card, it had to install the original drivers plus quite a few other cumulative patches. On top of that, if one lost hte original CD, it seems that Creative expected the poor sap to buy another card, because the patch drivers only worked if one had the CD drivers already installed. And they were nowhere in the website to be downloaded.

And that was only part of the mess...
Obviously nobody remembers the ISA-PCI transition for Creative Labs. Creative wouldn't put out PCI a product worth buying for around 5 years into the PCI adventure and kept relying on people to buy AWE32 and AWE64s. It wasn't until the Live came out (with it's awful dual CPU drivers for us BP6 users) that people could even consider an all PCI/AGP system.
What about doing what Nvidia does, license their chips to various manufacturers ?
no we do not need them to stay around, my 5 years old unborn son or daughter can do that job right. LOL ROFL LMAO

the point is:
1) MP3 you lost to iPOD because you can't and didn't use the advantage of your sound card, why ZEN is better in hardware but not an iPOD killer, because your product wasn't musician friendly, software base, your ZEN gave no special feature or some what even if i own a creative sound card on my PC. 
2) your X-fi's alchemy, once i had it installed on vista x64, my Warcraft III has no sound when i choose creative in the game option, it a DX8 game running on DX10, and your flag ship X-fi give me sh!t every time when i was actually excited, wow, creative have something new to their sound card, then, right away CL kick me hard right on my ballz, yea you're damn right, that is where CL targeted, their customers' ballz.
3) if i am Daniel_K, i will say Fxxk You, i will submit my resume to Asus.
4) Asus will just make something better, its Asus, you just can't go wrong with Asus, i hope they will keep it that way, so no need of Creative Lab anymore, just no need, period.
5) the on board thing you mention, oh please, get out of here, preffff, you think Realtek.tw is dead? they are ghost? they don't exist? Realtek HD 7.1 blow Creative from U.S.A back to SG, and then SG no one has interest on buying the on sale HQ, why? i don't wanna buy a HQ from a company that is going out of business, are you joking me, on drug, cracking up and sh!t? i don't want my company to close out like CL, ain't buying their HQ in SG. bad luck, anything is possible.

Realtek tw, i 1st think hey, that little crab thing icon looks very stupid and i just don't want that and what the hack is Realtek crab thing, then i give them a shot since my SB 16 veteran class card is no longer supported, i liked it, Realtek is great, then i gave CL another chance on Audigy ZX notebook, then i was kicked in my ballz, ouch, and i have a X-fi xtremeMusic, as i mention above, kicked on the ballz again and again and again, and again.

so, it is not only about bad PR headache anymore, it's much more serious, its about kicking the customers right in the ballz, the company as a whole picture, is falling apart.

1) MP3 iPod owned CL
2) Speakers Logitech owned CL
3) Sound Card owned by their CL drivers and endless ballz kicking to customers
4) on board which you mention already owned by Realtek already and they are just great, try it, you will believe me.
5) Asus will just own CL, no need to buy it, just let it die out, empty the space out, and build a parking lot on there, or a park, something better use of the land CL is on.
6) Intel already have people working on the sound, CL is no needed, that is why CL has people leaving all the time, 0 point to work for a noob company.

p.s. Sim the CEO & CO-founder, he was once an enthusiast, if you ask him today, which company's sound card he would choose to build a system, if he says CL's X-fi, some one give him a quick slap slap, then Quad-Triple shots of espresso, ask him one more time, he will than say, anything but CL's, Asus Xonar could try a little bit for average folks, try before we comment. studio hardware is > CL, so their chart on X-fi was freaking funny.

understand STUDIO > CL rejects, do i look stupid to you CL? draw me a chart that ask me am i stupid.

there you have it folks, B.S. are nothing true, because they are B.S., just personal thoughts, noting hating, or fan boy based
IMHO, Creative have made some decent hardware - particularly the EMU10k/10k2 based stuff. Good for gamers, good for musicians, generally good quality at good prices.

However - their drivers and software bundles have been universally crap - buggy, bloated and underpowered. And that's without even touching on the Vista debacle.

I still use one of the original SBLive! cards and a later Live!Drive for music production alongside a 'pro-level' audio I/O board.

Fortunately, I don't have to use their godawful software thanks to the kX Project - www.kxproject.com. 

If you've got an old card knocking around, go try them out, they're bloody great!
Just what Creative did to Aureal and 3DLabs are more than enough reasons so it should die and vanish from this world. Or at least be bought by someone who has a clue.

Or maybe multicore CPUs will have enough cores so that one of them can be used just for sound.

It's a real shame that Aureal had good positional sound via headphones TEN YEARS AGO, but was killed and bought by Creative Labs, who then buried the technology and even today Creative X-Fi cards don't have decent 3D sound with normal headphones.
First: something now known as, Creative flooded Market with sound Cards that Blew Out Entire computer, With NO Name on Chips. Government investigated & found all sound chips came from same place(with or without name), explanation was cheap card blowing out taught you to Buy More Expensive Stuff($100+), Which Was raved by retailers.

Its Pavlows Dog thing with sound, With Twinkling at start up, bringing smiles.
However, just using add on sound card is going to blow your built in Audio Subsystem 100% guareented. If you use auction site, you'll be lucky if Card lasts Month.
So Why Slow Boat to Correct Bad Manufacturer? Catholics control almost everything with sound, its just part of Church & Knowledge isn't strong point for them, Sound Became Attack point, in computing. Sound is Simple so grabbing drivers & stateing they are "owned" is decietful trick that keeps 6th century howling Mob Satisfied, by some chimp bearded arses.
Ms. k altered code to make it better, its k kode at this point. Stop kidding Yourselves, CREATIVE IS NOT GOOD COMPANY. You will suffer if you foolishly waste Your Money There.
Thomas Drashek
Considering my experiences with Creative products, I would prefer they go away. Either another company can make a new gaming sound standard(why can't we just use 5.1 sound???) or pick up the pieces of Creative's IP and start fresh.