Creative Celebrates its 20th Anniversary

A BLAST FROM THE PAST WITH 20 YEARS OF CREATIVE

Creative Celebrates its 20th Anniversary



Creative (Nasdaq: CREAF) the world-wide leader in digital entertainment

products for the personal computer and the Internet, will celebrate its 20th

anniversary this week. This milestone is a truly momentous occasion for
the

company who redefined advanced sound technology in the mid-eighties and

whose popularity and vision has continued to revolutionise the way that

people interact with their PCs by enhancing and expanding its capabilities.



Creative Technology was founded in Singapore by Sim Wong Hoo on July 1st,

1981 with two employees and initial capital of $6000. His vision was a PC

that could talk, sing and play music. With a design cycle of only

one-month, the nascent Creative provided electronic services and made add-on

boards for computers. One of the first products produced was a high-speed

cassette data storage system although Creative soon entered the PC market

with multilingual and multimedia software and hardware targeting both

Chinese and English speakers.



The organisation has travelled a long way since and the development of the

Sound Blasterâ PC audio card in 1989 meant that Creative would forever be

synonymous with PC generated sound.



Over the relatively short period of two decades, Creative has made a series

of development partnerships, licensing agreements and strategic acquisitions

which has ensured that Creative's success has been extended to include areas

of Internet videoconferencing, 3D graphics, multi channel speakers,

communications and, of course, Digital Audio Players. Creative markets its

solutions to consumers and systems integrators in 80 countries world-wide

through retail, distribution, OEMs and the Internet.



In 1992, Creative became the first Singaporean company to achieve a listing

on NASDAQ and in 1995 its revenues surpassed a billion dollars.



Today, Creative Technology employs over 5,000 staff world-wide. The

company's hopes for the future are to expand upon its leadership role in

Digital Entertainment, utilising innovative technology, broadband and

leading edge designs for technically progressive consumers and entertainment

enthusiasts.



Creative's Milestones - 20 year anniversary



July 1, 2001

Creative celebrates its 20th anniversary



2001

Creative unveils an API platform for game developers wanting to incorporate

Dolby® Digital content into their games. Designed to take advantage of
the

native decoding capabilities of the market leading Sound Blaster® Live!Ô 5.1

audio card, Creative has collaborated with Dolby to provide an integrated

solution for mixing in-game interactive, EAX(tm) -technology enabled 3D

audio with Dolby Digital- technology soundtracks for multi-channel systems.



2000

Creative ships its latest offering in the Cambridge SoundWorksÒ DeskTop

TheaterÔ series: the PlayWorks DTT3500 Digital, a complete high-end home

entertainment speaker solution incorporating Dolby Digital 5.1 technology.

DTT3500 Digital comes with a wireless remote control and is a powerful home

theatre speaker solution for use with either a SonyÒ PlayStation 2Ô console,

set-top DVD player or a PC.



Creative showcases the D.A.P Jukebox amongst the world's latest contemporary

and conceptually dynamic designs and products in the internationally

renowned Design Museum in London.



Creative announces the availability of the new Sound BlasterÒ Live!Ô 5.1

line of sound cards, Dolby DigitalÒ audio solutions that give today's PC

user the best audio entertainment applications for music, movies, and games.

Pioneering the next wave in PC audio listening, Creative's all-new Sound

BlasterÒ Live!Ô 5.1 series provides true 5.1 multi-channel sound to

consumers seeking an optimal audio experience from the PC.



1999

Creative's Sound BlasterÒ line of audio products has surpassed the 100

million mark in the number of units shipped world-wide. This coincides with

the 10th anniversary of the product's line launch.



Video BlasterÒ WebCam Go is the first ever portable PC camera that provides

real-time Internet images and detaches from the PC to allow consumers to

capture images on-the-go. It also offers all the benefits of a traditional

PC-based Internet camera including the ability to send video e-mail, create

and design personal Web sites, and the ability to video conference via the

Internet.



Announces Sound BlasterÒ Live! Platinum audio card, a digital audio solution

that provides the most demanding users with a strong set of applications for

Internet audio, music applications and gaming. The new accelerator boasts

the new Live!Ô Drive, an innovative front-end console that provides easy and

convenient connectivity to a wide array of analog and digital devices

ranging from general consumer accessories to sophisticated hi-fi equipment

for professionals.



Creative's Environmental Audio Technology now de facto industry standard for

immersive 3D gaming. Over 50 leading game titles are shipping with support

for Creative's Environmental Audio Technology. Microsoft's recent licensing

of EAX technology and plans to incorporate effects into a future version of

DirectX, further establishes Environmental Audio Technology as the de facto

standard for 3D game development.



Leveraging the programmable design of the EMU10K1 processor, Creative

redefines the entertainment experience for Sound Blaster Live!Ò Users with

Live!Ware 2.0 - the powerful audio engine at the heart of Sound Blaster

Live!Ò solutions to bring new and existing users a completely new experience

through a software upgrade.



1998

Sound BlasterÒ Live!Ô is the revolutionary new PCI audio solution that

delivers an unmatched, incredibly real audio experience that goes beyond

"Hollywood" quality audio and offers unprecedented immersive audio in

interactive gaming. It incorporates the superior surround-sound rendering

of Environmental Audio to create sound so real it has to be live! Creative's

Environmental Audio platform has garnered wide industry support from top

developers such as Electronic ArtsÔ, Activision Inc, DreamWorks Interactive

and MicroProse Inc.



Announces the shipment of the computer industry's first complete desktop

theatre system - Creative PC-DVD Encore 5X and Cambridge SoundWorks DeskTop

Theater 5.1 - for the PC.



1997

Forms merger with Cambridge Soundworks, Inc., making Cambridge SoundWorks a

wholly owned subsidiary of Creative. Cambridge SoundWorks is a leading

speaker manufacturer and retailer renowned for its high-performance home

speaker systems and critically acclaimed multimedia speakers.



1995

Launches the world's first 3D game card, 3D BlasterÒ, a high performance

add-in board to bring the excitement and visual realism of today's most

advanced 3D arcade game into the home PC.



3D BlasterÒ PCI demonstrates its powerful 3D rasterization capabilities that

bring workstation-level 3D graphics performance to the Pentium-based PC at

consumer pricing.



1993

Acquires Westpoint Creative, a leading UK multimedia distributor, to create

a new company, Creative Labs (UK) Ltd., which will become Creative's

European headquarters.



1992

Announces initial public offering of 4,800,000 Ordinary Shares on NASDAQ

National Market under the symbol CREAF.



Launches Video BlasterÒ a high quality system for display editing and

frame-capture of full-motion video, thus affording a new price point for

bringing full-motion video to the PC.



1991

Sound BlasterÒ Pro, soon after its market debut, was adopted as the stereo

sound industry standard for the Multimedia PC.



1989

Launches Sound BlasterÒ, a PC sound card featuring 11-voice FM synthesiser

with text-to-speech, digitised voice input/output, MIDI/joystick port and

bundled software.



1988

Sim Wong Hoo, Creative Technology's founder, establishes business in USA and

founded Creative Labs, Inc. in South San Francisco, California.



1987

Introduces Creative Music System (C/MS), a 12-voice stereo music synthesiser

card with a variety of music software to support the card: C/MS Composer,

C/MS Intelligent Organ and C/MS Multimedia Presenter.



1983

Hanyu Card; the world's first speech synthesiser to "speak" in Chinese
is

launched.



July 1, 1981

Creative Technology is founded in Singapore by Sim Wong Hoo.

The first product produced by Creative was a high-speed cassette data

storage system.





-Ends-



About Creative Labs:

Creative (Nasdaq: CREAF) is the worldwide leader in digital entertainment

products for the personal computer and the Internet. Famous for its Sound

Blaster and for launching the multimedia revolution, Creative is now driving

digital entertainment on the PC platform with products like its highly

acclaimed D.A.P Jukebox. The company's innovative hardware, proprietary

technology, applications and services leverage the Internet, enabling

consumers to experience high-quality digital entertainment -- anytime,

anywhere.



Founded in 1983, Creative Technology's corporate headquarters are based in

Singapore, with its European head office based in the UK. Creative Labs

Europe was established in 1993 to capture a bigger share of the growing

European Market potential. General Manager, Michael Sullivan put a fully

fledged European operation in place, with headquarters in Berkshire, UK.

Creative Labs Europe has grown nine-fold in the past three years with

subsidiaries in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, UK, Benelux,

Denmark, Sweden and Poland. Creative's European Operations and Technical

Centre (EOTC) facility was officially opened on 19 July 1995 in Dublin,

Ireland. The EOTC acts as the central hub to Creative Labs' fast growing

European business, providing an efficient localised and customised product

supply for the European market and customer support to complement the

subsidiaries' activities in the several countries. The European operation

currently employs around 450 staff.



For further information, visit www.europe.creative.com