Creative working on software version of X-Fi

Creative's core strength is audio. Given their patent portfolios, the professional side of the business (E-mu) and their relationships with developers, their key strength isn't making DSPs (digital signal processors). It's working with sound. The company has been gradually moving in the direction of becoming an all-around audio company, and less of a sound card company. Given that they're one of the larger, non-Apple manufacturers of digital music players, and that they make speakers, this may seem obvious.

But speakers and, to a lesser extent, music players, don't really leverage the company's core expertise. Sure, they can put some moderately interesting algorithms into music players to expand or try to improve the audio quality of low bit-rate digital music. But at the end of the day, they would be just another of a plethora of music player makers jockeying for a little sun in the shadow of Apple's iPod.

So Creative has started working the software angle..