Singapore’s Sim Wong Hoo, was famous for building Creative Technology (CT) from scratch. In the 80s and 90s, the SoundBlaster audio cards produced by CT was selling like hotcakes and propelled Sim from a struggling entrepreneur to Singapore’s youngest billionaire. In March 2000, CT’s shares was even trading at record high of $58. Now, the share price is languishing at $1.00. Has Creative Technologies won the battle but lost the war?
As a Singaporean engineer, obviously I hope Sim can do well and make Singapore world-famous again. His SoundBlaster audio cards had put Singapore on the global map and proved to the rest of the world that Singapore is capable of creating world-class innovative engineering products as well. But it is pity that IT is a very fast-paced and ruthless industry. The rapid evolution in the technology development led to cheaper, more powerful and better integrated computer audio systems than CT’s SoundBlaster. This ......