The New York Times mentioned that Wal-Mart is said to be in talks with Vudu movie service, a possible acquisition that will once again put the company into a digital delivery market. If Wal-Mart does buy Vudu, both companies failed to comment on the information, it will be able to deliver digital content to consumers through their HDTV’s.
Vudu once made hardware set-top boxes that streamed premium content to consumers homes, but after the company failed to turn a profit on the units, it switched to software for larger manufactures. Vudu is said to be expanding its services to manufactures such as Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp and Toshiba to televisions, blu-ray players and other devices. Vudu is also expanding with older relationships with LG Electronics, Vizio and Mitsubishi.
If the deal goes through, Wal-Mart will be able to provide in-home digital content to consumers. However, Wal-Mart has their work cut out for them as they will be going up against Netflix and Amazon’s video-on-demand services.
Vudu doesn’t only provide high-definition digital media content, but also offers integrated web applications such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Pandora, allowing users to post and share information and pictures with others.
Update: Wal-Mart has confirmed that they will buy Vudu for more than $100 million.