So much for disintermediation: these days, net companies and brick-and-mortar retailers just can’t get enough of each other. Wal-Mart Stores Inc has confirmed rumors of a deal with American Online (AOL) Inc, even as Microsoft Corp unveiled its new alliance with Best Buy Co Inc. The announcements follow yesterday’s revelations of similar partnerships between AOL and Circuit City, Yahoo and Kmart. Under terms of the Wal-Mart/AOL deal, Wal-Mart will sell AOL software in its stores while the partners will collaborate to form a budget ISP for the estimated 40% of Wal-Mart customers who aren’t yet online. As ever, the message is liberation through shopping. Millions of our customers will be enabled by this agreement to obtain affordable, convenient internet service, and to access our online store, explained Wal-Mart vice chair and CEO Lee Scott. We are bringing a new form of shopping to people in small and medium-sized communities across the country.
As for Microsoft, it plans to buy $200m worth of stock in Best Buy and to sell its MSN Internet service through Best Buy’s 350 stores. Best Buy ads will receive prominent and preferred placement across Microsoft’s net properties, including MSNBC, Expedia.com, Hotmail, WebTV and the MSN eShop. Forget the potential economic upside to partnering with the world’s biggest and most profitable software company; apparently Best Buy just really liked Microsoft’s latest corporate slogan. A deciding factor in forming this alliance is Microsoft’s ‘Everyday Web’ vision, making the web as prevalent as the telephone and even more useful in our customer’s daily lives, said Best Buy chairman and CEO Richard Schulze.
