Walmart Another Step Closer To Taking Over The World
By: Nate Nelson (Contributing Writer)
Gargantuan retailer Walmart, a purveyor of inexpensive consumer goods and scourge of small businesses everywhere, added to their empire by announcing plans to purchase Vudu, an online media streaming service. No financial details of the deal were disclosed, but the transaction raised many industry eyebrows.
Vudu began operating in 2006 with their set-top Vudu Box, an entertainment system component designed to let users rent and purchase streaming movies from home. In 2008 they also began offering the software behind the box as an embedded option to electronics manufacturers, meaning customers with Web-enabled televisions and Blu-ray players can subscribe to Vudu through those devices.
Walmart already offers Vudu connectivity in many of their digital entertainment products, including their Internet-integrated HD televisions. Walmart intends their purchase of Vudu to help them offer “unprecedented access to home entertainment options,” according to Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice-chairman for Walmart. They will rely on a perceived increasing consumer demand for web content on home television; by 2013, almost 40% of new digital TVs will be web-enabled.
However, the Walmart/Vudu tag team faces stiff competition from similar to services offered by major providers like NetFlix, Blockbuster, and Amazon. In addition, Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation video game consoles have online movie capabilities, diluting the potential customer pool even further. Vudu already has licensing deals in place with most movie distributors and has a catalog of over 16,000 movies, a number likely to grow with Walmart’s name and massive heaps of cash behind it.
This is not Walmart’s first experiment with online video services, having partnered with Hewlett-Packard in 2007 with an online store for movies and television shows. The Walmart/HP website closed after less than a year. The legions of Walmart haters will no doubt be hoping for a similar outcome to the Vudu purchase, particularly after they undercut all the Mom-and-Pop Internet media content providers with their enormous selection and low, low prices.
(via InformationWeek)
