Sonic owns the Roxio Now online video service, the underlying technology used in a variety of Web-based rental services, including offerings from Blockbuster and Best Buy, among others.
The focus on peer-to-peer room rental sets Airbnb apart from other accommodation-booking services are targets a different type of client.
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He expressed little concern about the more ominous threat from on-demand film rental services from the likes of cable giants Comcast and Time Warner, however.
Like other new services such as space-rental service Airbnb or car-sharing service RelayRides, Gobble distributes a market to a wide variety of people and makes a market much more accessible.
The company powers the textbook rental services of 250 campus bookstores through white-label partnerships, running touchscreen kiosks, iPhone apps and inventory management software.
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Since then, rental services Blockbuster (nyse: BBI - news - people ) and NetFlix and retailer Target (nyse: TGT - news - people ) lined up behind Sony's format.
Netflix is the online movie streaming company that competes with cable and satellite operators like Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Dish Network and DirecTV for streaming and pay-TV services, as well as video rental services like Redbox.
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About 53% of its revenue came from consumable products, spare parts or after-market services, with the remainder coming from rental or other sources.
As a result, they are able to deliver services at much cheaper prices than traditional car-rental companies, hotels, universities and encyclopedias.
Movie studios want consumers to buy more digital-movie downloads as DVD sales shrink and digital rental and subscription services, from which studios earn less, gain traction.
Both firms review scads of data that pour in from various multiple-listing services in cities across the U.S. and sift through rental listings.
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Amazon charges 15 cents for a gigabyte of storage and 10 cents an hour for a server, services that customers say are up to 90% cheaper than rental alternatives from computer-hosting companies like Equinix and Rackspace.
Amazon charges 15 cents for a gigabyte of storage and 10 cents an hour for a server, services that customers say are up to 90% cheaper than rental alternatives from computer-hosting companies like Equinix (nasdaq: EQIX - news - people ) and Rackspace.
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