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TiVo shares jump on Apple takeover speculation

updated 04:45 pm EST, Wed February 23, 2005

Apple to buy TiVo?

TiVo shares today jumped more than 17 percent on Wednesday, fueled by speculation that , according to analysts. Reuters reports that although TiVo's CEO says the company is not for sale, its low $300 million market capitalization make it an attractive takeover target: "What we hear on the street is that Apple is interested in their business and that they are a takeout target," said analyst Steven Kroll Jr. of Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co. The report says that several companies have been discussed as potential suitors for TiVo, including Time Warner and Comcast, Sony, and Liberty Media.

by MacNN Staff

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Manthas
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2004

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02/23, 05:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
YEAH!

What a move that would be!

trevc
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Joined: Mar 2000

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02/23, 05:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
Convergence

With everything Converging ... I think a move like this would help Apple tremendously in the Home Media Centre arena.

Eriamjh
Addicted to MacNN

Joined: Oct 2001

0

02/23, 05:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
Bullsh*t

Apple would only buy them to own the technology to make a better product and release an Apple DVR. Such a product would tie into the iPod's popularity and mass adaoption.

Tivo is dying. Apple will wait until they are mostly dead before making a move. In the meantime, it may be cheaper to develop their own player based on pixlet technology.

David Esrati
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Joined: Jun 1999

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02/23, 05:39pm | report spam | close Reply |
This would rock!

Apple shouldn't have to build from scratch the interface and the ease of use of TiVo when it's already there. Buying TiVo makes perfect sense.
Can we say iDVR from Apple...?
The place that TiVo has royally screwed the pooch has been in not being first to HD- and the picture quality of the current TiVo isn't that great either- this would fit perfectly with Apple's push to HD-
Apple would have an opening to set-top boxes- and the digital hub in a whole new way.

My only concerns: Apple has terrible experience with subscription based services- from e-world to .mac, they have managed to make a lot of mis-steps.

Apple may be working toward a iTunes music store selling tv shows- you want to watch last nights "Lost"- click- download and deliver- with digital rights management- and bit torrent type servers- on every mim/tivo you have an amazing way to deliver content.

I see it.

TiVo is a steal- for entry into TV.

dimplemonkey
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Joined: Oct 2001

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02/23, 05:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
Holy c***

That's facinating. I can't imagine the potential possibilities. I believe Tivo has been under poor management.

serpico
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Joined: Aug 2003

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02/23, 05:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
I wonder....

If Apple were thinking of making its own settop DVRs even if they were in the end not going to be directly compatible with TIVO if might make sence to purchase the competition before and then make it suck , then introduce your wonderful version.....

njfuzzy
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Joined: Apr 2001

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02/23, 06:02pm | report spam | close Reply |
Clout

Apple has the clout to get the content makers to play nice. TiVo has been fighting an uphill battle.

What Apple did for legal music downloading, they could do for DVR.

t6hawk
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Jan 2001

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02/23, 06:02pm | report spam | close Reply |
Not going to happen

For those of you who were online a month or so ago, Tivo just signed some huge agreement with M$ at the same conference where bill gates got bsod'd. Apple won't be picking up Tivo. h*** an identical rumor was posted on the forums just a day or two after Tivo signed and that was shot down in flames then too.

trevc
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02/23, 06:17pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:Not going to happen

Guess the rumors started by some shareholder who's value just shot up by ~20%. Not bad for a days pay.

Apple still needs to make an entry in that home-media arena ... but maybe without TiVo.

tamura
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Joined: Oct 2004

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02/23, 06:33pm | report spam | close Reply |
TiVo

does anyone know why no DVR services are showing up in europe? I mean bigger ones...not test drives.
Also, I'd say Apple better spend some of their cash to build AppleStores in europe- they could pick up some major cash here.

beeble
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02/23, 07:21pm | report spam | close Reply |
Business Model

I think people don't like subscriptions. This show clearly with the iTMS. The problem is that Tivo's business model is based on the subscription side, not on making money from selling boxes.

If Apple make a similar product, it seems to me that the most success will be had by staying away from subscription. Perhaps, people buy the box, get the scheduled recording features for free (how much bandwidth is involved in downloading a tv guide in xml once a day for each unit out there, less than Apple's website) and have the ability to rent movies. Unlike music, people are used to renting movies. The biggest difference is that movies are a lot longer and require a larger time commitment to watch them. You also can't really do anything else while you watch them.

Renting a movie with the option to buy it, download it and burn it to dvd would be a good model me thinks, especially if they can make the pricing look attractive.

Maybe they'll work things to make money on the boxes like with iPod, maybe they'll go down the cheap box - profit on rental road. But if they do do this, then I think they will attack it in a way that others haven't tried yet.

mbryda
Senior User

Joined: Mar 2002

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02/23, 07:48pm | report spam | close Reply |
Not a huge deal

"For those of you who were online a month or so ago, Tivo just signed some huge agreement with M$ at the same conference where bill gates got bsod'd."

It wasn't a huge deal. It wasn't really a deal at all. All it really did was highlight Tivo to go where you can put your tivo shows on a Winblows Media Player on another PC. Or one of the Winblows Portable Media centers. Whopdee friggin' do!

And then in other news MS intro'ed other boxes running Winblows XP BSOD edition (err, Media Ed) that go head to head with Tivo.

Let Apple pick Tivo up and show 'em how it's done. Imagine a Tivo device that ties it all together.... Tivo is already running on PPC and Linux, so it would be very easy for Apple's programmers to code for.

spacefreak
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02/23, 08:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
Chill, folks.

This was just a simple run-up rumor created by the street to capitalize on Apple fanatic gullability. And it worked.

LouZer
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Joined: Nov 2000

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02/23, 09:15pm | report spam | close Reply |
TiVo rocks

I love my tivo and can't imagine watching TV without it. However, I'm not looking forward to an Apple buy-out. They'd kill Tivo. Work on something for over a year while all current users go out and buy something else to get by, then come out with an over-priced and feature-lacking 'copy' of the original. Just like they've done with all the other hardware and software they've acquired over the years.

Jonathan-Tanya
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02/23, 11:42pm | report spam | close Reply |
Would be a good move

Apple needs to play in a bigger sandbox, and thats very difficult for them...it's not that people haven't heard of apple...they have heard of apple and made decisions about apple a long time ago.

Where I work, we could use an Xserve raid really bad...but no one is going to consider apple.

TiVO is one of those rare companies, with a very passionate fan base. If Apple picked up TiVO, they would be buying a lot of good will, and expanding their sandbox somewhat.

Sure, the iPod has helped apple some, but they would do well to make this expansion too.

Not sure, what having a Microsoft contract has to do with anything, apple got a $700 million dollar investment from microsoft a few years back...I'm sure if TiVO has a Microsoft contract, that could be a good thing...would have to see the contract.

olePigeon
Clinically Insane

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02/24, 01:12am | report spam | close Reply |
Four words:

Tivo and Mac mini.

technohedz
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02/24, 03:42am | report spam | close Reply |
apple kill acqs NOT

Where does anyone get the idea that Apple acquired, dumbed down, and then released over-priced feature-lacking copies? Apple's major media acq's FC, logic, motion, shake, and don't ever forget soundjam > itunes are just not focused on windows users anymore. Get over it. The technology isn't weakened just because it is spread in an interdisicplinary manner between consumer, prosumer, and professional marketspaces. Apple is a prime example of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. Not only is the technology spread in the userspace, but each individual application stands on it's own as superior to the previous versions. Will someone next tell us that Apple dumbed down USB, 802.11, Bluetooth, or even their own firewire? Wake up. Apple is an agressive innovator. Right now they could paint a brick glossy white and sell iBricks for a fortune. They could have before the Shuffles or the new mini's, but they didn't because they have enough practical business sense to know their niche is easily defamed and take the steps to grow cautiously not glacially. It wouldn't be in Apple's best interests to take a company and abandon the current base. In the public's eyes or just in a practical revenue generating sense the M$ acquire and kill policy is not what Apple can do or has a track record of doing.

ender
Junior Member

Joined: Mar 1999

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02/24, 05:14am | report spam | close Reply |
Indy DVRs are doomed

As soon as all broadcasts in the US go digital (TiVo doesn't do digital except DirectTV), and cable companies integrate their own DVRs into cable boxes, it will spell the end for independent DVR manufactures like TiVo. As for downloading movies, do you think the cable companies (and phone companies) are going to sit back while you download content over your flat-rate broadband connections? They will either block it, or start charging per MB to force you to get your content from them. Apple was competing with brick-and-morter stores for music sales. The competition for video content is a whole other animal (and when was the last time you felt you were treated fairly by your cable/phone company)?

Just a little devil's advocacy... :)

mikerich
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Joined: Oct 2003

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02/24, 09:11am | report spam | close Reply |
DVR in Europe?

There have been two attempts at a DVR service in the UK. TiVo was introduced using boxes from Thomson, but discontinued selling hardware after disappointing sales. This must be down to the unbelievably bad advertising - if you knew what TiVo was then the ads made sense, if you had no idea it looked like another (very expensive) video recorder. Shop staff were clueless and the TiVo was soon relegated to the back of the store and sold for ridiculously low prices to those in the know. TiVos regularly appear on eBay for prices ABOVE those when they were sold as new.

The success has been BSkyB's Sky+ which is sold to customers of Sky's Astra satellite service. It's an okay box - twin tuners unlike the UK TiVo, but a less than stellar build quality and a primitive electronic programme guide. But those people who have it love it.

There are also a few PVRs on the UK market that work with our digital terrestrial service Freeview.

So it is happening, but a: I wish it was TiVo, and b: if it isn't - Apple - iTV please - hmmm might be confusing to viewers of ITV.

ibugv4
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Joined: Jun 2003

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02/24, 09:49am | report spam | close Reply |
Indy DVRs are doomed 159

When they said they'd lock me into my service for $29.99/mo for the next year. That's when I started liking them. And no, I download TONS and TONS of iTMS songs, at one flat rate. Video data will be the same, they cannot (tho TimeWarner would be a direct competitor) charge you. I see an AOL-TW/Apple partnership. AOL Music is run by Apple, once Apple gets into digital video.. i foresee AOLTV and TimeWarner Cable moving - heavily - to a name-brand, recognized, and independently supported DVR. The TWC DRV is a complete joke, it's crippled and slow, and I've seen them crash (usually when I enter a room). I dropped TiVo some time ago, because I simply do not watch TV. A Web-based rental system that allows me to watch and burn to DVD any movie (INDIE ESP - if that's missing I'll totally ignore the service) I want to watch, I'd be all over it. iTMS did not appeal to me until more electronica started appearing, and I'll be about the same with iFlicks (iMovie is taken, unless it'll be the iMovie Store) ... cause till the content I want is there, why use it? EVen if the box you have to use it with is pretty and only $299 (which they need DVRs at the $99 pricepoint, that's not impossible).

macenzo
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Joined: May 2003

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02/24, 11:24am | report spam | close Reply |
TiVo

TiVo who?

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toggle

TiVo shares jump on Apple takeover speculation

updated 04:45 pm EST, Wed February 23, 2005

Apple to buy TiVo?

YEAH!

Convergence

Bullsh*t

This would rock!

Holy c***

I wonder....

Clout

Not going to happen

re:Not going to happen

TiVo

Business Model

Not a huge deal

Chill, folks.

TiVo rocks

Would be a good move

Four words:

apple kill acqs NOT

Indy DVRs are doomed

DVR in Europe?

Indy DVRs are doomed 159

TiVo

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TiVo shares jump on Apple takeover speculation

updated 04:45 pm EST, Wed February 23, 2005

Apple to buy TiVo?

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YEAH!

Convergence

Bullsh*t

This would rock!

Holy c***

I wonder....

Clout

Not going to happen

re:Not going to happen

TiVo

Business Model

Not a huge deal

Chill, folks.

TiVo rocks

Would be a good move

Four words:

apple kill acqs NOT

Indy DVRs are doomed

DVR in Europe?

Indy DVRs are doomed 159

TiVo

Login Here

Register for our weekly email newsletter:

Connect tools:

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10 Most Read

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