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Xperinet shutters media server business

As a follow up to the latest article; it has been confirmed by CEPro that Xperinet has closed operations.

It all started on 1st August of this year when CEO John Cox sent out the quote previously posted to sales reps. Citing the downturn in the economy, Cox said they will be filing for bankruptcy unless they can find a buyer or receive $400,000 in investment.

But there is more to this story than just a bad economy. In August of 2007 the company announced a media client named the Tarpon which never shipped because they never received the software. Earlier this year they announced Blu-ray support which was incompatible with their Linux operating system so they switched to a Windows platform, but this also failed to come to market. They instead preloaded Blu-ray Disc movies to the server, but this limited the end user to loading DVDs only.

They are claiming on developing a new platform, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for this. The media server market is getting crowded and I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened to another company or two – or at least getting bought up by bigger companies.

Did Xperinet go out of business?

There hasn’t been anything in the news, but apparently Xperinet isn’t answering their phones. A Remote Cental forum has one member saying two of their three phone numbers are disconnected and they’re not answering on the third. Another member says Xperinet is not accepting UPS deliveries at their office.

I can confirm the report about the phone numbers. You can call them yourself to confirm, their numbers are on their website.

One member on the forum posted a quotation from the company, but it was not attributed to anybody and it is not clear where they received this information. (From my own sources, this was an email sent to sales representatives.)

Xperinet is presently undertaking a significant restructuring due to weakness in the US economy. Slow US sales have placed considerable pressure on the company, and we are having to retrench, and focus on engineering before we can resume sales and marketing efforts in the US.

If this is true, they haven’t posted this information on their website, they haven’t informed their dealers. However last week at least one sales representative was let go from Xperinet. (This comes to me third- or fourth-party, and I’m unable to confirm it 100%.)

Xperinet manufactures hard-drive based DVD and CD storage for home theaters and home video distribution. Last year they announced support for Blu-ray Disc. They were the first to offer slim-clients for mounting behind TVs, and the first to offer synchronization between multiple units at different locations over the internet.

If they don’t come out soon confirming they have closed up shop or otherwise, I’m sure we’ll have final confirmation at CEDIA Expo in September.

Blockbuster rolling out rental kiosks

Blockbuster will be entering the video rental kiosk fray with 50 units this quarter. The video rental industry is moving quickly away from the brick and mortar retail shop and towards by-mail and kiosk rentals, as well as digital delivery.

The video rental chain has been struggling to stay alive with the change in the industry. They even tried buying Circuit City. Now they’re joining the kiosk market full force. Blockbuster joined with NCR earlier this year on this kiosk venture and are planning on installing 10,000 units over the next 18 months.

Clearly Blockbuster is throwing their full weight behind this venture. The biggest competitor in this market is Redbox, and they have only 6,000 units installed so far. Of course Blockbuster is spinning this move suggesting it’s just part of their larger plan, but the brick and mortar rental store is dead in the water. Movie Gallery is practically dead, and even Blockbuster is shutting down stores across the country.

Of course our friendly analyst (not to be confused with analrapist) Rob Enderle thinks the kiosk won’t replace the retail store. Since he was so very wrong on the format war, I’ll just chalk this one up to another case of corporate shilling.

Source: Home Media Magazine

Netflix: Blu-ray subscribers may find price increase

InformationWeek has confirmed that Netflix is currently testing price increases for subscribers of Blu-ray Discs. The rate hike was announced in April, but now some subscribers are paying between $1 and $2 more per month.

This is a limited test for now and is not affecting all subscribers.

I hope this means they will start to focus on the high-def market more. I wouldn’t particularly like to pay more for Blu-ray Discs when I have to wait longer for them to be available in my queue. But I wouldn’t mind paying a little more to make sure the latest Blu-ray movies are available more often.

Source: InformationWeek