Blockbuster Inc. (NYSE: ) and Motorola Inc (NYSE: ) tired of playing seemingly eternal catch-up game with rivals Netflix Inc (NASDAQ: ) and Apple Inc (NASDAQ: ) announced a smart move on Tuesday (Aug 18).

The announcement fell short on details – as the companies did not announce when this service would be implemented, or how much it will cost – leaving us to speculate if this will be an ace in their customer acquisition strategy. Go where the customers are going – that is the message from the latest deal by Blockbuster and Motorola.

Blockbuster has been struggling to find new revenue sources as traffic at movie rental stores vanishes and customers move to online video and order-by-mail services like Netflix.

Motorola on its part finds its handset division going in a downward spiral over the last few years, as it has not been able to find another phone that captures audiences like the Razr.

Can the deal save the two struggling giants win back customers?

In the late '90s, the home-video business was shifting to DVDs from VHS tapes, offered by rental giants such as Blockbuster Inc. Netflix emerged with warehouses that stocked larger selections of DVDs than Blockbuster's rental outlets could, mailing them around the country in red envelopes. Netflix charged consumers a flat monthly rate to rent as many DVDs as they liked, eliminating the late fees charged by rental chains. Eventually, Netflix usurped Blockbuster’s throne as the No. 1 video rental outlet. Blockbuster eventually started its own DVD rent-by-mail service, but scaled it back in late 2007 after consistently losing money on it.

In May 2008, Roku (a privately held Saratoga, California consumer electronics firm which specializes in home digital media products) released a streaming box that could play Netflix movies. Subsequently Netflix announced that its streaming service would be coming to the Xbox 360, Blu-ray players, TiVo, and other set-top boxes.