NTCA's The New Edge » Walmart

Best Buy Entering Crowded VoD Market

Kevin McGuire — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:41:06 +0000

Best Buy issued a press release today announcing that they will offer “same-day instant access to new release movies and TV shows” later this month. The service will be available through some consumer devices (like Blu-ray Disc players and HDTVs), as well as streaming to computers through their website www.cinemanow.com. LG Electronics and Insignia are among the first manufacturers that will have the technology available in their devices.

I get it — on-demand media is the flavor of the month, and you aren’t a consumer tech company unless you have a service. But to me it seems overly crowded with the likes of Netflix, Blockbuster, Google and even WalMart vying for a slice of the limited pie. Personally, I think we’re in the land grab days of streaming media. I don’t think anyone knows how it will all shake out yet, but everyone is rushing to stake their claim.

Oh, and does anyone else find it ironic that streaming video, which is supposed to usher in the death of physical media, is available through Blu-ray devices?

WalMart Agrees to Buy Movie Service Vudu

Kevin McGuire — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:42:05 +0000

According to the New York Times, Walmart has agreed to buy movie service Vudu. Vudu is a 3 year old start up founded by industry veterans from companies like TiVo, WebTV, and OpenTV, to name a few. It had deals with major studios bringing the ability to purchase or rent over 5,000 titles through either a stand alone box, or recently embedded into a variety of consumer devices like TVs and DVD players.

While details of the transaction are not known, one can be safe to assume that Wal-Mart is doing it to protect/diversify their DVD sales business. One site that I came across suggested that Walmart made up nearly 40% of the total $17B DVD market back in 2006 (which I believe was before iTunes sold movies).

Will they be successful? Time will tell. With services like Netflix, Blockbuster, and Boxee having a head start, Walmart may have a difficult time differentiating itself in an increasingly crowded market. I’d bet they will adopt one of their time tested strategies to try to compete: low, low prices.

Sprint Drops Price of Mobile WiMAX

Jesse Ward — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:33:06 +0000

Earlier this week, Sprint reduced the monthly price of its 3G (CDMA EVDO) and mobile WiMAX service by another $10, down to $59.99. This is the second $10 price cut in less than five months. And, for a limited time, the company is currently offering its 3G/4G U300 USB Modem for free after a $50 mail-in rebate.

As you may remember, Sprint resells Clearwire’s mobile WiMAX service under the Sprint CLEAR brand. Clearwire is in the midst of an aggressive rollout, with plans to cover 80 markets and 120 million POPS by the end of the year.

The price cut is “just to make it a no brainier for our customers to choose 4G,” Sprint spokeswoman Stephanie Vinge told FierceWireless.

Sprint, Clearwire and its investors are moving as quickly as possible, hoping to attract and retain customers before Verizon, AT&T and other major providers launch competitive 4G LTE services.

In related news, the rumor mill is a buzz, nothing that Sprint is negotiating with WalMart to place mobile WiMAX towers on the top of Walmart stores nationwide. WalMart has, of course, expanded at an exponential rate, and this would help Sprint bypass the usual zoning and municipal hurdles and expand its WiMAX offering at a much faster rate.