Wal Mart blocks Mac Safari and Firefox - retaliation for Apple blocking Wal Mart on iPhone?

Headlines are designed to attract attention and readers. CenterNetworks headline screams "Wal Mart in bed with Microsoft? Wal Mart says NO to Firefox, Mac, Apple". TUAW, The Unoffical Apple Weblog feels insulted too. Firefox browser users and Apple fans are upset because Wal Mart's new video download service  doesn't work on Firefox or Safari. It only works with Internet Explorer.

Conspiracy theory? Maybe Wal Mart is still angry about Apple blocking Wal Mart from selling the new Apple iPhone. Why would Apple block the world's largest retailer from selling the iPhone? Apple also blocked Best Buy and Circuit City. This is one of the main reasons that Verizon refused an exclusive deal with Apple for the iPhone. Verizon would not abandon their retail partners.

Why would Apple block Wal Mart from selling iPhones? Apple probably wants to control the retail price, return policy, and customer service. They may believe that controlling these things will optimize their overall revenue and profit. Maybe they want to promote snob appeal and not allow their product to be sold in discount stores. Apple has their reasons...but they aren't obvious.

Why would Wal Mart not support Firefox and Safari? I don't know, but my guess is it has something to do with DRM or security issues that are better handled by Explorer. Or perhaps Wal Mart just doesn't want to hassle with extra coding work to make their service support other browsers. One thing is for sure. Wal Mart doesn't do things for political reasons. They are driven to increase sales and profits while providing quality products and services at the lowest possible price. So, Wal Mart has their reasons too.

Ignore the sensational headlines. The truth is usually rational and boring. Most times if we all had the same inside information we would have probably made the same decisions. Or, even if we didn't agree, once we heard the facts and rationalizations we could at least understand why they decided to make that decision.

Customers rule. Apple and Wal Mart, and every other business, is driven by profit. In most cases they will do whatever optimizes sales and profits. In the end, customers decide if these executives made the right decisions. We all get to see the results at the end of each quarter. That is business.

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Comments

[Ben]

I wonder if this means Wal-Mart fixed this Firefox bug on their website:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/06/nice-one-walmart/

[David H Dennis]

Insofar as I know, Wal*Mart downloads do not work on Apple computers. So there is really no point to support Macintosh or Linux browsers.

85% of the world users IE and I think the remaining 15% is unlikely to shop at Wal*Mart for music downloads.

So on balance I suspect there is really little point for Wal*Mart to bother with the non-IE world. They're a store for average customers, and average customers use IE for Windows.

D

[Binnur Al-Kazily]

From news, looks like Wal-Mart is using HP's video merchant services (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070206005514&newsLang=en) that is currently in beta. Unfortunately, HP has limited the service to Windows only. Question is why Wal-Mart hasn't specified ALL platforms as a requirement?

[Ron Evry]

Well, I used the Safari Debug Menu (if you don't have that available, there are plenty of free programs available on versiontracker.com to open it up) to pretend to be IE6 for Windows.

I was able to browse the Wal-Mart menu, and even watch previews of the videos no sweat (you may need to have flip4mac installed, I don't know for sure).

I didn't see anything I wanted to buy, so I'm not sure if that part of the process will work.

==============================
-=-Ron Evry-=-
Creator of 'Mister Ron's Basement' Podcast on iTunes
http://slapcast.com/users/revry
==============================

[Cell Geek]

My guess it Apple wants to control the price for as long as possible as discount chains undermine that.

[Terrin]

Why would Apple block the world's largest retailor? Simple, when the device first launchs inventory will be tight. It wants to make sure both its own stores and Cingular's are well supplied. It did the same thing with the iPod. When it could judge the success of the device it ramped up production. Afterall, Apple doesn't want to be sitting on excess inventory.

As far as the Internet Explorer issue goes, Walmart is not targeting Mac users. The fact of the matter, however, is its videos use Microsoft's DRM, which does not work on Macs. Accordingly, why let Mac users download a movie they cannot watch?

PS

As another user pointed out, you can trick Walmart's site to think Safari is IE. You may even be able to watch previews, as one user pointed out. That is because FlipforMac's Safari plugin allows you to watch Window's media files. The rub, however, is that these files must not be protected, which the previews probably are not. Accordingly, you will not be able to watch a downloaded movie, which certainly is protected by DRM.

[Travis Wright]

Funny, that Wal-Mart would want to miss out on 31% of all Firefox browser users.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Man, they aren't too tech savvy there in Arkansas... who knew?

[DonDodge]

Travis, we can debate the market share numbers, most tracking services have IE at 80%, Firefox at 14%, and Safari at 5%, but it doesn't really matter.

The fact is Wal-Mart made a business decision to only support IE, and ignore, at least for now, the Firefox users. If you read the comments above I think you can see why they decided to do it for a video application.

Did they make the right choice? Time will tell. Can they later add support for Firefox? Sure, it is just software...there is always a way to make it work. Most times its not just the upfront work, it is all the support and maintenance...forever...that makes the choice difficult.