Creative Labs winds down ATI business

AS WE REPORTED yesterday, Terratec has left the graphic business because of the pressure.

And now it seems that Singapore giant Creative Labs is also feeling miffed, at least with one vendor of graphic card chips.

We understand that Creative won't use ATI technology - at least not this generation - or as a source told us it wants to "wind down their ATI business".

We don't know what broke up the marriage, but it's obvious that Creative Labs is unhappy with the current arrangement.

Creative will continue to support its current customers that have already bought cards and will supply product for as long as it necessary.

But as soon as ATI has fulfilled some contractual arrangements, Creative will just shut its ATI business down, we understand.

Creative Labs has promised us a detailed explanation this coming Monday.

However, we know that many ATI partners will love the news since this means more cards for them to sell, but I guess the startroopers at ATI's Mothership HQ is not very happy at losing the biggest retail partner from its score card.

We also learned that ATI wants to get closer to retailers, whatever that means, but it won't ship any cards directly, at least not here in Europe.

Creative Labs will continue to use Nvidia chips, it appears. µ