We're Going to Need Bigger Boatsš
š„Seventeen is the number of WarnerBros. movies coming straight to streaming next year and š©āš¼the future of enterprise software might be more consumer-focused
Letās start with a quick take on the decision to debut all Warner-made cinema products in the US on its streaming outlet at the same time they release in theatersā¦
Hereās the gist of the affair, in short: WarnerMedia will publish all their new movie on HBO Max service at the same time they hit theaters and they will be available there for 31 days, after which the products will be only available for viewing in cinemas until the traditional 90-day window has passed. After the three months since the original release have expired, consumers will be able to rent the titles on Amazon, iTunes, etc.
Easy enough to understand, right? š
As weāre starting to close in on the one-year anniversary of the pandemic making the cinema space rockier with each new installment of stay-at-home conditions, movie makers needed to pivot to a more realistic plan that wonāt force them to delay their already-paid-for products indefinitely.
While this is meant to be a āunique one-year planā, if things go well and cinema chains prove to be a lot less relevant than they think they are, this wonāt be a one-year plan. Traditionally, the main attributes of the cinema experience were the better-quality viewing experience along with the social aspect of it, but with home cinema technology becoming better, cheaper, and more ubiquitous, COVIDās negation of the second aspect is helping to open consumersā eyes to this fact right now. At this point, itās anyoneās guess on what the triumphant solution for distribution will be for these products in a post-pandemic reality, but a hybrid cinema+streaming combo is the more likely.
With most cinema chains in countries heavily affected by lockdowns being on the brink of bankruptcy, thereās no reason why movie studios like WarnerBros. and streaming giants like Netflix or Amazon couldnāt pick them up for pennies on the dollar and extend their at-home viewing experience to a cinematic one, this time on their terms. Amazon Prime including X amount of cinema tickets per month in an Amazon-owned theater would be a hard thing to say no to.
Finally, in the wake of this development, I couldnāt help but remember a point I made in the past about the less-than-legal practices of movie downloading getting more popular as more streaming competitors enter the market and make the proposal for the consumer impossible to figure out and the cumulative price prohibitive for the many. With titles now streaming as early as they do and the internet serving as the propagation method for any digital product, I expect services like PopcornTime to surge in popularity over the next year.
The deal of the week of the past seven days was, without a doubt, Salesforceās acquisition of Slack in exchange for almost $27Bn. Most people in tech expected this move after Slack couldnāt find a way to become profitable even in the new pandemic reality he attacked by competitors like Microsoftās Teams solution āwho they ironically welcomed to the space in an ad that hasnāt aged well at all.
The solution of selling appears to have been a smart one, as Slack stock went up to a record high of $42 in the days before the deal was announced, and it also served as a small middle finger to Microsoft as they compete with Salesforce in the could market. After checking my notes, Iāll change that to āvery smallā, as Microsoft is worth 8x more than Salesforce right now.
Unfortunately, this is the sad story of many companies in the enterprise space, where innovation and clever design only get you to a certain point, and if you canāt figure out a way to go beyond that point when you reach it, enterprise giants will scoop up your idea and leave you in the dust. Teams is in no way a better consumer experience when compared to Slackās solution, but when you bundle it with Office 365 at no extra cost, removing any risk and downside for potential clients to try it out, it becomes a no-brainer. Credit to Microsoft who spent time and money building the +100M client base for O365 and now theyāre reaping the benefits.
Now with Salesforce behind them, Slack can deploy their product to all Salesforce clients and leverage the breadth of Salesforceās distribution network in the enterprise space in order to sign up new clients. And from what the official comms read, thatās exactly the plan here. With Microsoftās advantage reduced by a considerable amount, we can go back to the best quality of the product winning in the long term, and a long play this isā¦
I wonder, though, if this is the beginning of a transition when it comes to enterprise software, one where user experience is becoming more valuable even in this space, one thatās not so different from Appleās revolution of the personal computer. After all, employees of big companies are people too, theyād like a better user experience if given the option by the IT department, an IT department thatās facing an ever-increasing push towards consumer-friendly products considering how ubiquitous devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops have become in recent years.
First off, with the news slowing down over the holidays, Iām taking some time off from writing the letter until at some point in January. Have a good holiday break!!š š
In celebration of the Slack sale, Microsoft wanted to see if they can sell $27.7Bn worth of ugly Christmas sweaters in a month so they can then donate it to Girls Who Code; they havenāt failed yetš¤¶
Fortniteās latest season pass added more Disney-owned characters in the form of The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda. The deal to license the characters appears to have gone good for both companies, with Fortnite registering a boost in the number of players while Marvel characters flood the Top 15 most owned skins over the past seasonš¦øš½š¦ø
CrowdPlay is finally available for Stadia, allowing fans of game streamers to join them in an ongoing gameplay session. Weāre finally starting to see these cloud gaming-specific features for these platforms that are both entertaining and serve the current-day desires of gamers, but also leverage the innate nature of the platform that allows them to differentiate themselves from traditional gamingš®š®
In this weekās ānews about gaming IP making it to cinemaā, Oscar Isaac is slated to play Solid Snake in the future adaptation of Hideo Kojimaās āMetal Gear Solidā franchise into a movie. Solid casting, if I do say so myselfā¦š„š¹ļø
It turns out that buying all the coca from Colombian farmers would cost significantly less than what the country spends on the āvery unsuccessfulāwar on drugs right now. So theyāre gonna try and do that. I wonder if this will also boost Colombiaās tourism industry immediately after ratification is done withāļøš“
The remixes between mediums are continuing with Fortnite meeting TikTok dancesā¦
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