There is a thought-provoking interview at The Motley Fool with Blockbuster’s new CEO.
It provides a framework for making sense of the asymmetries between what Blockbuster must do to succeed and the space that Netflix has carved out and stands above the crowd within today.
It also provides some updated grammar for evaluating the video rental market.
Instead of “online” versus “bricks and mortar,” Blockbuster's CEO speaks of “by mail” and “bricks and mortar” as the segments in play right now, and "online" as being about online downloads of movies, something that is still coming down the road.
It simplifies the ultimate objective for Blockbuster as ‘building a merchant culture and lots of little fundamentals. ... that take time.’
True words for both Blockbuster and Netflix, to be sure.
Here is an excerpt that anticipate road ahead for the two companies:
‘The dynamic duo will compete in the mailing space for a few years and then shift to downloads... But until then, they serve different demographics and can coexist and grow side by side -- with the occasional bump and bruise along the way.’
Disruption and co-existence of sorts.