Creative Technology founder Sim Wong Hoo dies at age 67

Sim's death comes as a shock, say staff

- Prisca Ang and Sherlyn Sim

Creative Technology chairman and chief executive Sim Wong Hoo, one of Singapore's mous tech entrepreneurs, Wednesday. He was 67.

most fadied on Mr Sim founded the homegrown business in 1981, and had led the company since its inception. In a bourse filing on Thursday, Creative said Mr Sim "passed away peacefully", without giving details.

Under his leadership, Creative became famous for its Sound Blaster sound cards and digital entertainment products. It became the first Singaporean company to list shares on the Nasdaq in 1992.

Mr Sim, who was single, grew up in a kampung in Bukit Panjang, the youngest of 12 children.

He studied electrical and electronic engineering at Ngee Ann Polytechnic after leaving Bukit Panjang Government High School. Upon graduating in 1981, he set up Creative as a computer shop in Chinatown that year with his schoolmate, Mr Ng Kai Wa, who is now a board member.

Creative's Sound Blaster card, launched in 1989, was a game changer in allowing PCs to generate quality sound. It had sold 400 million units as at 2019.

By 2000, Mr Sim, then aged 45, had become the youngest billionaire in Singapore. He was the first person to receive the Singapore Business Awards' Businessman of the Year accolade twice.

Mr Sim had also gone to war with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs over their companies' portable music players. He sued the iPod maker in 2006 for patent infringements and walked away with a US$100 million (S$134 million) settlement.

Creative had launched its Nomad MP3 player in 1999, two years before Apple unveiled the iPod. It later also rolled out other music players like the Nomad Jukebox Zen, which doubled as a portable storage device for other media such as photos and videos.

However, its products ultimately lost out as Apple's music player gained popularity.