What do you do when you are an enormous online retailer who just so happens to provide hardware and services of their own? Well, firstly you stop allowing the primary competition to sell their products through your site. At least, that is part of the story coming from third-party vendors about an email that was sent out from Amazon. It would appear that Amazon will be banning all new Apple TV
“Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime,” the message read, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. “It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.”
According to that message, it would appear that Amazon is flexing its muscles a bit. I am sure it has something to do with some of the other announcements Amazon has made recently, like the CBS deal from this morning, mixed with Google Play Movies & TV / Apple TV not being supported by Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. What is truly interesting, is that Amazon Prime Video is Android and iOS compatible, but Amazon is playing hardball on making their own app for the service compatible with Chromecast or Apple TV stating that “Prime Video doesn’t work well with its rivals’ products.” That argument seems pretty thin at best in this technological day and age. It would seem a bit more accurate if they said “We won’t support them, so we aren’t going to sell them. Buy a Roku, Fire TV or Fire TV Stick
I doubt we will see Amazon stocks plumet, but they could renig on the whole thing by the end of the month. If they are worried about “customer confusion” as they say, they could simply make it blatantly obvious on the purchase page the device a customer is buying does not support Prime Video. We shall see where it goes from here.
Source: BloombergBusiness Via SlashGear
