TiVo May Be a Buyout Target

Moose writes "Ars Technica has a piece up about the takeover rumors surrounding TiVo, now that it has a lawsuit win to boost its chances in the marketplace. From the article: 'It appears that TiVo is at a major crossroads, with brilliant technology under what now appears to be enforceable patents and a rapidly growing subscriber base, but with larger players in the TV market lurking just out of sight, possibly with pen to checkbook already. The DVR innovator seems to have little control over its own destiny now, and future success may rest in the hands of the legal system. Godspeed, TiVo.'"

Comments

Tivo rules!

[Ragnarr]

For those of you who haven't tried it, Tivo really changes how you watch TV. I have a difficulty watching "live" tv since getting mine about 6 months ago, and it's mainly due to the fact that during your recordings you can "30-second" skip through the commercials. Also, you can watch shows whenever you want. For instance, I was gone for the last 2 weeks on business. I didn't have time to catch the shows on TV where I was. When I got back, there they were! The other thing, the user interface is amazing! It's simple, intuitive, and works as you expect it to. I've tried MythTV, and for all the work you put into it, it's still just a beta system that will fail you when you least expect it. Some people talk about the Cable provider's DVRs; they can't touch the usability of Tivo. Tivo just works, and it works well. Oh, and for you portable fans out there, there is software to download your tivo shows to your PSP/Palm/Cell/whatever. It works well, doesn't take up a ton of space, and can even be automated. Now that's a cool feature! As for cost, Tivo used to have a $299 lifetime (for the life of the hardware) user fee. I was lucky enough to sign up for this when I bought my box. Unfortunately, that was recently taken away in favor of providing "free" hardware to the consumer. Would I pay 15-18 bucks a month for a Tivo? I'll cross that road when I come to it. Oh, and for you "hax0rs" out there, you can even upgrade your tivos with bigger hard drives and the like. I have a 300gig drive in my 40 hour tivo :). Tivo will continue to be a wonderful innovation, and hopefully this will allow it's interface to spread into other venues.

Apple

[intrico]

Apple really should buy TiVo. I really believe TiVo nicely complements the overall direction and image of Apple's product line. They just need to make slight modifications to the casing to make it match their other products. Also, it really wouldn't be too hard for them to tie it into iTunes service as well, thereby using iTune's success to increase the TiVo user base. If this happened, Apple would corner the home entertainment market. Hopefully someone at Apple has the insight to see this. Of course, there are behind the scenes accounting and finance factors that determine whether or not a large buyout like this would be feasible for a company such as Apple.

Re:Fallen out of love w/ TiVo

[Khammurabi]

Yes, most of its sales used to come from the hardware, but last year, subscription payments for the TiVo service brought in almost twice as many sales dollars as the hardware ($167 million to $72 million). And TiVo is quite happy giving up hardware sales, as they sell their boxes at a loss--it cost $84 million to produce the hardware that was sold.

I've said it before:
Tivo's greatest asset is its brand and unique UI, not its DVR. Tivo should give up its DVR sales and instead license its brand and UI to other DVR makers. This would give Tivo a more predictable income and allow the company to expand into other areas. The reason Tivo is a buyout target is because any CEO with half a brain has thought of this and sees the company as piggy bank just waiting to be cracked open.

If Tivo isn't willing to follow the lucrative business model sitting in front of them, a bigger company will gladly come along and "guide them" in the right direction.