Submitted by The Standard01.23.2008
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Betting closes on Jun 22 2008
For years now, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! have been trying to find ways to take over our living rooms. Microsoft made a pretty good stab with the XBox. Their media centers were a bit of a botched experiment, however.
In the background, Tivo has successfully built a decent fervent userbase not unlike the type of devotion often seen with drooling Apple fanboys.
Rather than take a whole new brand to market, one of the "Big 3" will buy Tivo this year - by the summer - and integrate Tivo's phenomenal technology with their own (imagine Google's advertising network becoming embedded into the lovely Tivo). It makes one shudder at the thought, but with acquisitions like YouTube, DoubleClick, social networks (MySpace by News Corp) it seems inevitable.
Heck, even our TVs are LCDs now. All of the different types of media and their means of distribution are merging.
Tivo could be the missing link if handled properly by a company with vision and bottomless pockets.
Current Community Consensus 46%
Prediction Statistics
| Betting Closes: | Jun 22 2008 | Current Consensus: | 46.26% | Total Bets: | 70 |
| Today's Change: | 0% | ||||
| Life Time High: | 51.25% | ||||
| Life Time Low: | 37.75% |
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Comments
I love my Tivo, who doesn't? But Tivo is a brand in peril. The cable companies and Direct TV are rolling out their own TiVo clones, Apple TV and Microsoft Media Center seek to replace Tivo, and even game devices such as the XBox 360 and perhaps even the PS3 and Wii could move into this space as well. Time is ticking for Tivo. Either they enter into a strategic partnership (be it merger, direct content, or become acquired outright), or they will slowly be replaced by competing devices.
There are many players who might want a slice of Tivo, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, or any of a number of content providers may want to make a bid. But every day that Tivo waits to arrange a deal, they are worth less and less. This is not a market that Tivo is gaining, it is one that it is losing - and will ultimately lose entirely.
Few companies, other than Apple, have developed a user intuitive device such as the Tivo that is instantly understood and loved. Let's hope that Tivo finds a life partner which will help keep it alive ;)
And that's the way I see it,
The Dusty Sage
No offense to all the Tivo fanboys out there, but it's not the competition that is causing its downfall. It is Tivo itself!!! It hasn't learned to adapt with the changing markets, and it's once innovation has turned into a lack of motivation. Now Tivo's only choice is to play reaction to the market as M$ and Apple join the mix. Not saying that these two companies can even pull it off!!! AppleTV is a glorified ipod and M$ is too worried about licensing that they have wasted years on the Media Center market! (realistically, who places a tower next to their TV, except for mouth breathing MySQL worshipers) The best solution out there was Meedio but they were bought by Yahoo! So, I say farewell Tivo. I don't think anyone will buy ya, at least not this year. My prediction is that Tivo will slowly dwindle into the halls of history only to be bought out by Dish Network at pennies on the dollar.
Tivo's technology is not unique or protected enough that a company like Apple couldn't simply do it better, and as we know, already has begun to. While the Tivo experience is refreshingly friendly, the most obvious possible suitor would be Apple, and with Apple TV out for months now, why would they acquire? Tivo is not a powerful or smart enough company to be a risk. While acquisition is certainly possible, release of Apple TV tells me that is not the route we will see Apple taking. Microsoft is not in the business of user interface friendliness, and Google has grander dreams. Tivo's latest business innovation was to attempt to become a service company by charging monthly fees (no more lifetime service) instead of a hardware company. Most folks can easily see that the "service" they sell is nothing more than the ability to download the TV Guide. That's not a powerful company in terms of coming up with good long term business ideas. I think their heyday has passed. I'm a loyal user, but do not believe in Tivo as a model, not as a service company. There's no acquisition in the future because Tivo is not threatening anyone. They'll just die a slow death.
Google and Tivo have become closer recently and I think it makes perfect sense. Google could reinvigorate the brand. Tivo is the pioneer and I believe they do what they do better than anyone else. While I haven't had experience with cable company DVR offerings, I have had experience with DirecTv's DVR (I started out with the DirecTv-Tivo box/service but had to switch when the box quit) and it was so bad I switched back to Tivo after a couple of months. The Tivo 3 year plan averages out to only a couple of dollars more than DirecTv's monthly DVR fee and now I have a networked box I can access Internet and home content with. Tivo already has a connection with Google's Picassa (nice for family photo slideshows) and they recently announced plans to access YouTube content. Yeh, makes a lot of sense to me. Go for it!
Reasonable people forget, TIVO invented this marget and they are still here...the law suit will be the reason a big player takes TIVO to were it needs to be.
MARK MY WORDS!
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