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Watch Shelly’s commentary on AMAZON (NASD: AMZN) launching VIDEO ON DEMAND and whether or not it will compete with APPLE’s (NASD: AAPL) iTunes store.
TIVO (NASD: TIVO) and DIRECTV (NASD: DTV) have struck a new partnership. The deal will enable DirecTV subscribers to record shows on high definition TiVO boxes. The partnership, which comes on the heels of TiVO’s deals with Comcast and Cox, signifies TiVO’s position as a premium DVR service and could bode well for the company as generic DVR’s become more common.
MICROSOFT (NASD: MSFT) will slash the price of the XBox 360. Citing poor sales, Microsoft will begin offering the Xbox 360 for $199 beginning Friday. Microsoft’s director of product management Aaron Greenberg said Microsoft cut the price to spur demand in the fourth quarter, when most consoles are sold. He also noted that 75% of the original Xbox and Playstation 2 happened when the price fell under $200.
YAHOO (NASD: YHOO) and VERIZON (NYSE: VZ) have signed a web deal that will offer Yahoo’s web services to Verizon internet subscribers. While the two have had a similar deal for a few years, the new offering has Yahoo sharing a cut of the revenue generated by search and display ads, as well as premium services.
The FCC is expected to allow phone company’s to stop filling yearly reports on quality of service, customer satisfaction and internal investment. Requests filled by AT&T (NYSE: T), VERIZON (NYSE: VZ)and QWEST (NYSE: Q) are expected to be approved. The FCC doesn’t plan on abandoning reports all together, rather stopping them in order to develop a new way of collecting data that is more suitable to the current marketplace.