Sim Wong Hoo, who founded Creative Technology, a manufacturer of sound blasters, in 1981 and remained at the top of the company ever since, has died. According to a statement released by the company (opens in new tab), Sim "passed away peacefully" on January 4.

Creative Technology (known as Creative Labs in North America) was a groundbreaking player in the early days of PC gaming, thanks to its long-running series of audio cards. after the famous Sound Blaster series debuted in 1989 and quickly took the market by storm: Adlib, which had been the effective standard for PC game audio before the advent of Sound Blaster cards, lost its position so quickly that it was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1992.

The Soundblaster series has evolved over the generations since the release of the first card. My second sound card (ironically a replacement from Ad Lib) was the Sound Blaster Pro, released in 1991, which helped boost the company's worldwide revenue to well over $1 billion by the mid-1990s.

Subsequently, with the advent of onboard audio, consumer-level sound card sales fell off significantly, and Creative's efforts to expand into other technologies, such as CD-ROM drives and video accelerators, also failed. However, the company found continued success by refocusing on specialized audio, such as high-end sound hardware (the Sound Blaster AE-9, released in 2019, impressed us) and speakers.

Creative is also known for facing off against Apple in a 2006 patent dispute over Apple's hot new invention, the iPod, and winning. Creative had its own line of Zen audio players at the time, and these had an interface for scrolling through a music library. Ultimately, the two companies settled for a $100 million payment, and Sim's company walked away that much richer. Given the success that followed with the iPod, Apple certainly had the last laugh, but Creative continued to make many of the PC products we use to this day, even if its Zen music player had a limited shelf life.

"I have known and worked with Mr. Sim for over 30 years," interim CEO Sung Siu Hui said in a statement.

"This is a sad and sudden turn of events, and we feel a great sense of loss.

According to a message posted on Creative's website (opens in new tab), Sim "was a visionary, an inventor, and an entrepreneur who gave voice to the PC. He will be deeply missed."

He was "a great man, a great man, a great man.

The cause of death was not announced by the company. Sim was 67 years old.