A partnership between Blockbuster and Archos will see the rental giant selling netbooks at some of its stores.
Blockbuster will sell the Archos 10 in 1,000 of its brick-and-mortar stores. The computer looks like any other netbook, with an Intel Atom processor, 1 GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard drive. Blockbuster is touting the Archos 10's multimedia capabilities, despite the lack of a DVD player, which would be ideal for playing rented movies.
.jpg)
Indeed, it's not really clear what Blockbuster is trying to do here. The press release says that the Archos 10 will include "an embedded link to www.blockbuster.com," but that's it. There doesn't appear to be any incentive for netbook buyers to become patrons of Blockbuster, aside from a Web link they didn't ask for and could (hopefully) delete.
This is a perfect time to bring up Dan Rayburn's scathing attack on Blockbuster, published yesterday on Business Insider. In a lengthy, well-articulated rant, Rayburn blasts the retailer for failing to lay out a cohesive digital media plan. He points out examples of where Blockbuster has fumbled and flaws in public comments from executives.
I've made this point before, but Blockbuster always seems to try new things without tying them back to existing services. This netbook partnership is the perfect example, because it does nothing to bring Blockbuster any new rental business.
