Following their May 2001 initiative to reenter the graphics card market Creative Labs has now taken a second step and bought the remains if 3DLabs for approximately $103 million dollars. "Creative has developed, owns and markets the world's highest performance audio silicon technology," said Sim Wong Hoo, chairman and chief executive of Creative, based in Singapore, in a statement. "With our announcement today, we will also own the world's highest performance graphics technology and a leadership position in the ultra high-end graphics space." Read on...

Creative already owned portions of 3DLabs shares and now just made the next logical step and acquired the rest of it. Furthermore this was a predictable step to strengthen the multimedia giants position on the worldwide market. "For the first time, we will own substantial graphics intellectual property and a formidable graphics patent portfolio that will allow us to achieve a higher level of returns for our efforts as we re-emphasize the graphics category," Woo continued. "This is a very different opportunity than when we were exclusively a graphics card provider that relied solely upon chips from other vendors. This enables us to pursue a business model that we believe has the potential for high margins like our audio businesses, while providing even more exciting opportunities for growth and enhancing shareholder value." Source: ExtremeTech