August 1996
Creative Zone finds its way into I-way's Top 500 Web
sites in the World
Sound Blaster AWE32 in Virtual Radio
July 1996
Creative Zone awarded 5-star review from C-net
Creative Zone is Awarded Stockhouse Public
Company Site of the Day
Sound Blaster AWE32 Tops the List in PC World's
Top 5 Sound cards
June 1996
Creative Ships Internet Blaster 33.6 PnP
May 1996
Creative Zone's Entertainment Arcade
awarded "G1 Award"
April 1996
Creative Introduces Graphic Blaster Multimedia
Accelerator Cards
March 1996
Creative Zone Awarded with Magellan 4-Star Rating
Creative Labs Products Rank #1 again
Creative Zone is Microsoft Pick of the Week
February 1996
Creative Sets Up Headquarters in Canada
Creative's Modem Blaster Tops Ingram Micro's Best Seller
List
Creative Zone is a winner in the Corporate Home Pages category of the Fall, 1996,I-way 500 listing. Creative Zone placed 16 of 25 winners.
The I-way 500 is a quarterly ranking of the best 500 Web sites in the world. The I-way staff rated each site using seven criteria: Serves Intended Purpose, Depth of Content, Accuracy, Accessibility, Design/Style, Navigation, and Performance.
Radio station SUN 87.6 FM, located on the Sunshine Coast area north of Brisbane, has developed a narrowcast station using a single computer for transmission to the local area. By using a 486 PC with just 4MB of RAM and Creative Pacific's AWE 32 soundcard, Queensland's Radio 87.6 is hitting number one in its market, against stations using technology costing 10 times as much.
The station uses batch files recorded through the AWE32's standard WAVstudio. The flexibility of WAVstudio allows announcers and programmers to edit easily - whether it be a news broadcast or community announcement. Even time calls on the station are automated by checking the operating systems time clock and announcing it over the air by selecting the appropriate WAV files.
The whole setup is easily installed and operated - the product is so reliable that SUN 87.6 FM was left to run on air by itself for a two week period over the Christmas break - without a hiccup.
Using the AWE32's compression facility, a full weeks worth of material is pre-loaded onto a hard drive which is then taken from the studio to the transmitter. The changeover of hard drives results in just one to two seconds of interrupted transmission, and decompression is achieved as the program is replayed.
The program has been such a success, it has drawn attention from both within Australia and overseas. The first additional station to be set up is in Penrith, NSW, which will use the program as a replacement for the $160,000 station equipment it was using previously.
Shopping centres have found it to be extremely successful in attracting shoppers and increasing sales. The system is also ideal as a music on-hold program. The program can run with minimal memory (around 1K) under Windows or OS/2 in a DOS window, which allows the computer to be used simultaneously for other tasks. The on-hold content can include music, advertisements - even time calls. It is extremely adaptable and allows customers to add in a multitude of different options. Whether it's music, advertisements, community announcements, time calls or weather forecasts.
The program sells in Australia for just $5000, and minimum requirements include Creative's AWE32 and a base model PC. The program is guaranteed to be totally stable.
Sound Blaster boards are clear winners! PC World Multimedia Edition picked 2 of Creative's Sound Cards to be among their list of Top 5 Sound Boards. Sound Blaster AWE32 PnP emerged as the TOP Sound Board while Sound Blaster 32 clinched the 5th rating. The review is available at PC World's Web site.
Another award for Creative's Web site! According to the StockhouseOnline Journal, this honour is awarded to Public Companies with sites that are graphically appealing and well designed.
Creative's confirmed its status as a world-class web site when it was awarded a 5 star review from C-net. According to the review, "Creative Labs has given its site a complete facelift, and in so doing has transformed its Web presence from a run-of-the-mill company site to an entertaining and informative virtual community.". Read the review for more details.
Yes, Creative introduces the First Complete High-Speed 33.6 Internet Solution. Creative is proud to bring you the first instant solution to provide web space for home page creation, and web site designed specifically for Internet Blaster customers. Read the press release for more information.
The GameMasters, a new awards based web site has picked Creative Zone's Entertainment Arcade as the top 5% of all PC games related web sites on the Internet - the "G1 Award". The Entertainment Arcade was said to have "contributed greatly to the development of computer gaming and simulation". Check it out!
Creative's new line of Graphic Blaster brings high performance graphics and high quality enhanced video playback at an unprecedented low price. The three models : MA302, MA202 and MA201 features high-performance 64-bit accelerator technology.
You can read the press release here.
In Merisel's 3/18/96 Hot List, Creative Labs products rank #1 again!!!
Barely one and a half months old and the newly revamped Creative Zone is Microsoft Network's (MSN) Top Pick of the Week (13 - 19 Mar) in the Computers and Technology category. According to the MSN Webmaster, the Creative Zone is "an exceptional World Wide Web site", and the Zone's "music pub and entertainment arcade are good places to chill". So why're you still here?
Creative's Canadian headquarters located in Toronto began operations on 27th February 1996. The setting up of the headquarters is in response to the growing demand for Creative's products in the region.
Canadian customers can look forward to localized software documentation and specialized customer support lines in English and French, the country's two official languages. Creative will also design product packaging and localize marketing and advertising support programs in both languages.
Look here for the full press release.
Yep it's true. Modem Blaster 28.8 (internal) is a chart topper, outselling even U.S. Robotics Sportster 28.8 which ranked number 5 in Ingram Micro's February '96 best seller list (communications hardware category).
For 1st - 5th place holders check out the list below:
Rank Weeks Which Modem Manufacturer 1 12 Modem Blaster 28.8 Int Creative Labs 2 4 Sportster 14.4 Ext U.S. Robotics 3 4 28.8 Int 14.4S/R Fax V.34 Megahertz 4 20 Sportster 14.4 Int U.S. Robotics 5 8 Sportster 28.8 V.34 U.S. Robotics
Look here to find out what makes Modem Blaster 28.8 (internal) such a hot product.
Ingram Micro Inc. is the world's largest wholesale distributor of microcomputer products with an inventory that includes 34,000 products from more than 1,000 of the world's top hardware and software companies.
To visit the Ingram Micro Website
The Creative Zone is a 4-STAR site according to Magellan, a popular navigational and internet directory of more than 2 million sites on the World Wide Web.
According to the Magellan editorial team, the Creative Zone "has excelled in our rigorous review process, in which we consider three primary factors : depth of content, ease of exploration, and Net appeal."
Here's how the Zone scored on each of the 3 counts:
Based on the Magellan rating system, sites are awarded from 1 to 4 Stars, with the highest score being 4 Stars. So far about 40,000 sites have been reviewed and rated by Magellan's editorial team.
For how some computer and related sites fared under the Magellan star rating system, read on.
Magellan is a navigational and internet directory of the McKinley Group. The Group was founded in 1993 by a team of international publishers, technologists, and information specialists committed to delivering the best navigational and informational directory for the net. Look here for more information on the McKinley Group.
Copyright ©1995, 1996
Creative Labs, Inc.