Thursday, December 27, 2007

Apple Fox Deal: Blockbuster and Netflix Impact


Apple has a deal with News Corp's Fox for a movie rental downloads. So far, the viddeo download business has been called a "hobby" by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Disney has had its catalog available on iTunes to allow for purchases, and other studios have partial movie and partial video content catalogs already available. It isn't clear how much impact the new "rental" capability will have. Apple probably doesn't expect much revenue lift for the moment.

Blockbuster and Netflix, of course, will be watching closely, as both of those firms want to dominate the video download business.

If Apple succeeds, it will illustrate one interesting thing about "disruptive" innovation. Normally, one expects more innovation from smaller companies. But sometimes it takes a big, influential company to really shake things up.

Google and Apple are those sorts of companies.

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