WalMart is not happy with Apple

[Boyd Ostroff]

http://yahoo.businessweek.com/bwdail...831_806225.htm

The notion of kids running around with full-length movies on new, wider-screen iPods that Apple is expected to unveil as well is causing grief in Bentonville, according to Hollywood executives. The $312 billion a year retailer, they say, wants concessions that could include lower DVD wholesale prices.

[Joe Carney]

The thing about Wal Mart is, they will use any excuse to get their suppliers to lower prices. Ample doses of promises and FUD are their standard approach. If the studios are smart, they will call Wal Marts bluff, or broker new deals with K Mart and Target.
The rules of dvinfo prevent me from posting what I really feel about Wal Mart and their tactics.

[Tim Goldman]

wal-mart lowers prices mainly on their end. If you shop around their really not that cheap, they just force the companies to sale a greater volume at a lower price to them, then when they roll out , they don't really pass any big saving on to consumer. Here's mymain argument, have you really seen any thing become cheaper do to the big stores.
and when i say cheaper i mean to the point where you say
"wow, this is cheaper, i use to pay $$$ for htis item". Personally i haven't, it's all just big buisness smoke screens.

Hope i didn't break any rules, but buisness is never about making it cheaper for the consumer, it's about making it cheaper for the producer and the middle man, the consumer always gets the worse deal possible, even if the cost of production falls.

[Kent Frost]

Well, I haven't seen things become cheaper in OTHER stores because of Walmart, but having worked in the "other" stores, I can say that I get a TON of people coming in saying "Well, I can get it LOTS cheaper at Walmart."
Right now I work in a Cingular store, and I hear it every day. I used to work in a local pro camera store...they were our direct competitors when it came to point & shoot, entry-level SLR cameras, and camcorders. Sure, you can get it cheaper there, but 8 or 9 times out of 10, you'll wish you hadn't bought it there after a few months. And you're not likely to get good service in the specialty store if you walk in wanting to know how to use an item you just bought at walmart.

There was a guy I worked with at the camera store who worked there for 30 years, and he had been working with a customer for hours and hours over several days on an entire higher-end Nikon 35mm SLR system with lenses and everything. After all this effort, the guy walked in one day WITH the very camera system that they had been discussing for so much time, and asked for the guy he'd been working with so he could get some more information on how to use it. He had purchased it all online. Well, when the guy came out and saw that he had the camera, he kicked him out of the store. I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing or not, but I know I certainly would have had some words for him.

[Ruth Verdugo]

It's about time that this happened. (Selling downloadable movies online.) Well, it's already happening with at least one other movie downloadable service, and it's high time that it happened with Apple. The movie industry must compete with illegal downloading. People have made it clear that it's what they want. If the movie industry allows it to happen legally, much of the illegal downloading will cease. (Not all of it, of course. Some people are just cheap! ;))

Walmart needs to step out of the way. I have no love for Walmart, but that's beside the point here. Mainstream online downloading of movies MUST happen, and at a tempting, reasonable price.

[Frank Granovski]

In Vancouver, British Columbia, Walmarts are complete junk stores. They don't even sell the cheapest of the cheap in the way of computers. You Americans have it pretty good with Walmart, or so I hear from family living in the US.

[John Sandel]

Frank, everything is better down here.