Wal-Mart Bears Down On NetFlix And Blockbuster

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Wal-Mart (WMT) has made enough mistakes recently that most of its competition may not be overly concerned when the company launches a new service.

That could be a mistake. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) is providing the technology for Wal-Mart to launch an on line video store and DVD-by-mail service. All six Hollywood studios have signed on: Universal (GE), Paramount (VIA), Disney (DIS), Warner (TWX), Sony (SNE) and 20th Century Fox (NWS).

The video download business is currently crowded with companies like Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), and private companies including Movielink.

NetFlix (NFLX) and Blockbuster (BBI) have begun to move into the download market as they see their business of physical DVD rentals eroded by internet download operations.

If Wal-Mart is successful with the new service, shareholders at NetFlix and Blockbuster better duck.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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