Netflix cranks up DVD distribution
Posted by me101 on 20 June 2002 - 13:15 · 6 comments & 108 views
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In an effort to speed deliveries to its customers, online DVD-rental company Netflix said it has 10 new distribution centers throughout the country up and running.
Netflix charges consumers a $19.95 per month for a subscription that allows them to choose movies online and have them shipped out via first-class mail. Subscribers return the DVDs using enclosed mailers. There are no late fees. Customers can rent as many movies as they want during a month but can only have three movies out at a given time.
The new centers are located in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Previously, all movies were shipped from Netflix's main distribution facility in San Jose, Calif. Adding distribution centers should cut down on shipping time, the company said Thursday.
Netflix said each facility can handle approximately 50,000 DVD orders per day. Netflix now believes it has the capacity to handle up to 1 million orders each day.
NonStop servers range in price from $1 million to several million dollars, depending on the configuration. Traditionally, NonStop server customers are bought by financial and telecommunications companies, HP said. HP acquired the NonStop server business through its Compaq acquisition. Compaq in turn had acquired the NonStop line when it bought Tandem Computers Inc. Tandem in turn was founded by people who had left HP.
"The NonStop business has come full circle," said Nist, adding that HP is committed to the NonStop server business. While competitors were coping with sales declines, the NonStop server business grew by 4 percent in terms of revenue over the last four quarters with over 20 percent of revenue coming from new customers, Nist said.
The NonStop software suite, which includes a Java Virtual Machine, a J2EE enterprise application server and a NonStop SQL database, was also enhanced. The database, for example, now offers publish and subscribe functionality, which allows users to monitor their data and automatically update the database, HP said.
Also on the software side, software integration vendors Tibco Software Inc. and SeeBeyond Technology Corp. are now partners in HP's Zero Latency Enterprise initiative for the NonStop servers and each will port products to work on the NonStop platform, HP said.