“Amazon.com may have beaten Apple to the punch in introducing its online video download store last week. But the reaction from many about Amazon’s new Unbox service was a resounding yawn,” Paul R. La Monica reports for CNNMoney.
“Jefferies analyst Youssef Squali proclaimed in a report that Amazon Unbox was ‘Too Little Too Early.’ Caris & Co. analyst Tim Boyd echoed that sentiment, titling his report about the new service, ‘Amazon Unbox: A Little Too Far Ahead Of Its Time,'” La Monica reports. “Citigroup analyst Tony Wible said that Amazon Unbox was “not really out of the box.” And in perhaps the most scathing review, Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield issued a report about Amazon’s service with this snarky headline: ‘Maybe the Studios Do Not Want Legal Internet Downloading to be Successful Right Now?'”
La Monica reports, “The main criticisms of Unbox were that Amazon was only offering a limited amount of movies, they could not be burned to a DVD and that the price to own or rent a download was not much better than purchasing or renting a DVD.”
“The nascent movie download business may get a huge shot in the arm Tuesday. That’s when Apple (Charts) is widely expected to launch its own online movie service on its popular iTunes store. The company is holding a press event in San Francisco on Tuesday and the invite to reporters showed the Apple logo in spotlights and featured the following message: ‘It’s Showtime,'” La Monica reports.
“Analysts said that the fact that Apple is holding a big event, as opposed to just putting out a press release, probably means that it is something else up its sleeve, namely a hardware announcement that could make movie downloading a much more attractive option for consumers. ‘My guess is that the announcement has something to do with hardware as well, something to make the TV more accessible to digital media obtained from the Internet,’ said Phil Leigh, senior analyst with Inside Digital Media, an independent research firm,” La Monica reports. “Leigh said Apple may announce new versions of the video iPod and/or its Mac mini computer that can connect with television sets so that movies transferred to the iPod can be viewed on a TV.”
Full article here.
Unfortunately for Amazon, the reviews keep pouring in. Luckily for Amazon, everyone will forget about Unbox tomorrow.
Related articles:
CNET Alpha Blog: absolutely do not try Amazon Unbox – September 09, 2006
Analyst: ‘Amazon Unbox – Well that didn’t work at all’ – September 09, 2006
Analysts: Amazon’s ‘Unbox’ to be ‘Unsuccessful’ vs. Apple – September 08, 2006
Cringely: Apple, Amazon, and what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve for next Tuesday – September 08, 2006
Amazon.com launches ‘Amazon Unbox’ DVD-quality video download service with TV shows and movies – September 07, 2006