Posted Tue Dec 29, 2009 at 01:00 PM PST by Mike Attebery
With web based entertainment seen as the future of video distribution, companies are racing to establish their dominance. Netflix is unsurpassed in its offerings, and that could make the streaming video service a perfect acquisition for a number of companies.
According to Marianne Wolk, an analyst at the Susquehanna Financial Group, Netflix is ready to be bought. The company made a niche for itself in the rent by mail business and is currently the number one choice in that category. They also dominate the online marketplace with not only a large subscriber base but incredible household penetration.
There’s a good chance, according to Wolk, that we’ll see Netflix purchased in the next few years. She says that the most likely scenario is integration into Amazon. Since they use similar rating and suggestion systems, the merging of the two services would be relatively painless. Not to mention the addition of the Netflix subscriber base and content library could make Amazon the number one place to go for digital media.
Amazon isn’t the only company that could benefit from the acquisition though. Google has the money to throw around and it never hurts to own another piece of the internet. The most intriguing choice would be Comcast, which could either create a sort of wonderful utopian service where television is available day and date on Netflix, or just create a subscriber based version of Hulu.
Source: Video Business
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