A slump in the CD-ROM market has forced Singapore multimedia group Creative Technology Ltd, maker of the SoundBlaster sound boards, to search for new ways to generate profits, its chief executive Sim Wong Hoo said. Creative posted a loss of $33.1m in the third quarter to March 31 on revenue of $282.1m. Sim said Creative would have to become more focused and enter into partnerships to create new products. One of the new partnerships is with US company On-live Inc, aimed at enabling Internet users to communicate through three-dimensional characters. Sim said Creative would contribute the audio technology to the software and has taken a small stake in On-live. The software is expected to be provided free in Creative’s products in the fourth quarter this year, he said. The company will also invest up to $133m in Singapore in a five-year research and development program to develop technologies for Digital Video Disk and optical storage, three-dimensional graphics, advanced telephony and videoconferencing, audio over Internet and advanced audio and music synthesis.
