Creative Technology - nothing if not classy

Creative declares marketing 'war' against iPod (Yahoo! News)

"The MP3 war has started and I am the one who has declared war," Sim said. -- Creative CEO Wim Wong Hoo

Fantastic. Because you know, the idea of a real war is so foreign to consumers, they won't be bothered by casual use of war metaphors one bit...

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That aside, I'm not sure how competitive any iPod alternative as long as iTunes Music Store remains the #1 music download service. MSN Music might win out, but unlike Apple, Microsoft kinda needs its store to be profitable.

Plus, Apple has the cache as the musician's (and other artistic types') brand of choice. You can't imagine U2 doing a promo for MSN, can you? They did the iPod spot for free instead of taking money elsewhere, because it's that important to associate themselves with Apple.

"I'm planning to spend some serious money -- I intend to out-market everyone," said Sim.

That's nice. But so far, all I've seen are ads that basically replace Apple's white background with black, and rip off the ads for the different colored iMacs.