Sears & Kmart to Partner with Sonic Solutions for Digital Video Service to Release Later this Year

Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:SHLD) and Kmart will carry a new digital video service called Alphaline Entertainment beginning this holiday season, for televisions and Blu-ray players made by Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE), Panasonic Corp. (NYSE:PC), LG, Samsung, Sharp and RCA.

Alphaline Entertainment is comparable to the video service already offered by Best Buy Co. (NYSE:BBY) and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT), which allows customers to set up the service in-store and take it home to view movies right away.

The soon-to-be offered service by Sears and Kmart will use Sonic Solutions' (NASDAQ:SNIC) RoxioNow technology platform to stream nearly 5,000 new releases already available from the service.

"Moving from Blockbuster and Best Buy to Sears/Kmart shows that those retailers who reach a broad base of consumers are really wanting to embrace digital services," said Sonic Solutions' head of strategy Mark Ely.

Sonic Solutions' streaming media library is available through Blockbuster Inc. (NYSE:BBI) online, Best Buy, and Sears and Kmart later this year; Wal-Mart opted to purchase streaming-video service Vudu instead of partnering with Sonic Solutions.

Sonic officials say that retailers are new to the idea of web-connected services, and due to consumer trends and surge in web-based media sales, are now pushing it forward.

"We see the DVD business declining over the next couple [of] years," said Sears and Kmart's vice president of home electronics Elliot Becker. "We wanted to offer a service on all of the devices we sell, not just TVs, but Blu-ray (players), tablets, all the devices we're in or going to get into."

Shares of Sears are trading up 0.36% early Tuesday at $74.92, whereas shares of Sonic Solutions are down 0.83% at $8.39.

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[navilamba]

look. at. the. camera.

[nickelcraft]

Sears and Kmart, not Sears Holdings and Kmart. Sears Holdings is both along with OSH.