Well now, lookee here:
Today, Walmart and VIZIO announced they have entered into an agreement for Walmart to acquire VIZIO for $11.50 per share in cash, equating to a fully diluted equity value of approximately $2.3 billion.
Why would Walmart buy a TV manufacturer? As RedState’s Brad Slager notes (with my emphasis):
Walmart currently stands as the largest retailer for Vizio products, but this buyout has less to do with the retail side of things. The store chain is eyeing its expansion opportunity through Vizio’s smart TV platform. The intention is for Walmart to step up and become more of a direct competitor with Roku, Amazon, and YouTube in the direct-marketing arena, intending to leverage Vizio’s OS through its built-in television apps.
Hey, the more the merrier (paraphrasing Milton Friedman, talking about free-market capitalism).
Just as long as Walmart doesn’t pee in the soup and prevent Vizio owners from choosing between the various vendors like Roku et al. by locking them out of Vizio sets. That would be a Bad Thing.
I can’t see why they’d do that,because this would just mean that consumers just wouldn’t buy Vizio TVs — I certainly wouldn’t under those circumstances — but as we often see, giant corporations are as prone to fucking up as any other business.
I agree, more competition gives us better goods and services. I just hope, as you said, Walmart doesn’t screw the pooch on this.
Didn’t Apple get a slow start into the desktop computer business because their operating or software system was proprietary while the PC or IBM based model used Microsoft’s somewhat open platform? I’m not up on computers really or the programing industry.