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Netflix CFO Sees No Future for Amazon Rentals

Posted by Zonk on from the sniping-from-the-sidelines dept.

Dave H. writes "In comments made at the Morgan Stanley Small Cap conference last week, Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy says he doesn't think Amazon.com will expand its video rental market into the US because the retailer's infrastructure wouldn't work to its advantage with video rentals. He also sees the window between theatrical and DVD releases shortening, which is a Good Thing." From the article: "The price of entry is much higher now than it was in the past, both in terms of the cost of locating warehouses and just the mere fact that Netflix and Blockbuster are both considerably larger now. McCarthy then said that Amazon is in the classic make-versus-buy dilemma, noting that the company can either start from scratch or try to acquire service through either an acquisition or partnership." Update 6/20: Barry McCarthy's position at Netflix corrected.

3 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. what he really said was by epaton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    please dont go into business against us, we are for sale

  2. Re:Time between theatre and DVD by Spodie! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not such a simple process to shorten the time to DVD release. I work in the sound department of a large motion picture studio and all the work I do is for DVD.

    Nowadays, every DVD release is dictated by the marketing department. Almost two years ago we fundamentally changed every aspect of our workflow in order to be able to deliver final DVD audio to the authoring department faster. We shortened our delivery time by a week, but marketing wants it much faster - often, this is not possible.

    The biggest problem is that the company is so large and there are so many titles in the pipe that the scheduling of elements being created by outside venders is very problematic - final approved picture, final approved audio, extras, subtitles, DVD menus, etc. Not to mention the fact that there are so many idiots up the chain that have no idea what's involved in getting the actual work accomplished.

    The President of my company has said that he wants to eventually see the day when a person can walk into the theater, watch a film and on the way out buy the DVD. This could, and probably will happen, but it would likely be a domestic only 5.1 and/or Lt/Rt with little or no extras. The replication time alone would probably push back the theatrical release a week or so.

  3. Re:I can't wait...Other IMPORTANT CEO HEADLINES by darkPHi3er · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. Microsoft CEO sees no future for LINUX

    2. RHEL CEO sees no future for UNIX

    3. Google CEO sees no future for Yahoo!

    4. RIAA CEO sees no future for P2P

    5. CBS CEO sees no future for HBO

    6. Western Digital CEO sees no future for Lexar

    7. Oracle CEO sees no future for MySQL

    8. Sun CEO sees no future for Dell

    You read it here first!

    --
    Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...