OPINION: Devices and desires
By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 4/18/2008
APRIL 15 | IT'S PROBABLY NOT ENOUGH to rescue Blockbuster's share price from the shellacking it's taken since announcing its unsolicited bid for Circuit City, but you can hear an echo of Blockbuster's logic in the deal being announced today between online movie service CinemaNow and Technicolor's Electronic Distribution Services unit. Under the deal, Technicolor will provide the "digital supply chain" for CinemaNow's strategy of embedding its virtual storefront on consumer electronics devices.
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda
According to CinemaNow president/COO David Cook, the company is "very bullish" on the comes-with-content model for consumer electronics devices. The company already has deals in place to embed its digital movie store in portable media players from Samsung and Archos, in set-top boxes from DISH Network and in a range of products from Hewlett-Packard. More such deals are on the way, according to Cook.
The next big battle for market share among consumer-facing movie providers, in Cook's view, will be the race to embed themselves in as many devices as possible.
Read the full story at Content Agenda.com.
