[opendtv] Re: Movie Gallery Acquires MovieBeam
- From: "John Willkie" <johnwillkie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 13:20:28 -0800
A couple of thoughts.
When you run with elephants, it's easy to get trampled. Add to that the
fact that for the elephants, this was a VC thing. It could have been worse
for them; a real competitor could have bankrolled the operation.
They bought "the customers?" I thought that slavery was a thing of the
past. The "customer list" is probably more like it.
And, wasn't MovieBeam really a pre-loaded hard drive? Not much different
than a DVD in the mail.
I suspect that this is really about off-loading to others the task of
upgrading the infrastructure to digital delivery. The end of analog, as I
write this, is 709 days, 11 hours, 42 minutes and 9 seconds in the future.
MovieBeam RIP?
John Willkie
P.S. It might be informative to see who are the investors in the acquirer;
this might be a "deal" like AOL buying Netscape.
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Shutt" <shuttj@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "OpenDTV" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 12:04 PM
Subject: [opendtv] Movie Gallery Acquires MovieBeam
> How much did Disney/ABC/Intel/Cisco and others invest in MovieBeam? And
> Movie Gallery expects that the total costs for acquiring MovieBeam and
> ongoing development costs will be less than $10 million in 2007?
>
> Talk about cut and run...
>
> John
>
> Via TV Technology
>
> http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0016/t.2893.html
>
> Movie Gallery Acquires MovieBeam
>
> March 9, 2007
>
> Movie Gallery, the nation's second largest video rental business, has
> purchased the assets, technology, network operations and customers of
> MovieBeam Inc. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
> Launched in 2003, MovieBeam--which uses a portion of the analog signal of
> PBS' national datacast network--has had a checkered past. Originally
backed
> by Disney, the service was halted in 2005 due to lackluster interest. It
was
> relaunched as a hi-def movie download service in 2006, with additional
> backing from Cisco, Intel and several venture capital firms. The service
is
> currently available in 31 markets. Customers pay $199 for the MovieBeam
box,
> which can store up to 100 movies per month, starting at $1.99 per view.
>
> Movie Gallery says that it plans to use MovieBeam's "existing
> infrastructure" to expand digital delivery capabilities beyond what is
> already offered, including streaming movies over the Internet, IP-based
> content delivery and "other developing channels."
>
> Movie Gallery's rival Blockbuster--the nation's largest movie rental
> service--is reportedly in talks to acquire Movielink, another movie
download
> service.
>
> "We believe the MovieBeam service provides the best video-on-demand
service
> available in the marketplace today and is a strong compelling complement
to
> the consumer retail video store experience," said Joe Malugen, chairman
and
> CEO of Movie Gallery Inc. "Our acquisition of MovieBeam is the first phase
> of our long-term strategic plan to provide digital content to consumers.
We
> will begin merchandising the MovieBeam service in our Hollywood Video and
> Movie Gallery stores and on our Web sites in the near future and we have
> exciting plans to build upon the existing content digitization and
broadcast
> platforms."
>
> Movie Gallery expects that the total incremental expense related to
> MovieBeam, including the initial acquisition cost and any ongoing
> development expenses, will be less than $10 million in 2007.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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