Chris Gohlke
07-13-2006, 08:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060710-7228.html' target='_blank'>http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060710-7228.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"In the past few months, one of Apple's biggest rivals in the digital audio player space, Creative, has begun competing with Apple using legal tactics. Looking back before the birth of the iPod, Creative had a significant lead on Apple, with almost a full year's experience in developing and selling hard-disk-based players. What is almost completely unknown, however, is that Apple was willing to work with Creative to develop an Apple-licensed player as opposed to building their own from scratch. According to Creative's legal filings with the US International Trade Commission, Apple had originally sought to license Creative's IP and create the iPod on Creative's platform. The filings reveal that Apple was unsure that this scheme was going to be profitable in the long run, and proposed the radical (for Apple) idea of partnering with Creative to create a digital audio player. Creative decided against joining forces, and the rest is history."</i><br /><br />It would be really interesting to see how the market would look today in this alternate reality. I'd bet we would see less developed products and lower overall market penetration for MP3 players in general.