HMV is a UK-based music and film retailer. The first HMV-branded store was opened by the Gramophone Company on Oxford Street in 1921, and the HMV name was also used for television and radio sets manufactured from the 1930s onwards. The retail side of the business began to expand in the 1960s, and in 1998 was divested from EMI, the successor to the Gramophone Company, to form what would become HMV Group.
HMV stands for His Master’s Voice, the title of a painting by Francis Barraud of Nipper, the mixed Terrier listening to a cylinder phonograph, which was bought by the Gramophone Company in 1899. For advertising purposes this was changed to a wind-up gramophone, and eventually used simply as a silhouette.
HMV was one of the first global retailers to start transacting business on the Internet in early 2000. The IT team was challenged with two options – 1) build an enterprise level infrastructure to support the high volumes of traffic generated by sales from www.hmv.com 2) find a strategic partner with solution platform that met the current and future needs of this new sales channel.
The RSG Solution team
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