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Technology Stocks : Tivo (TIVO) Interactive TV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (936)	4/24/2003 3:36:13 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2093

Industry Standard founder predicts Apple will take over TiVo Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 10:42 PM EDT The upcoming May issue of Business 2.0 magazine will feature an editorial by John Battelle, founder of the Industry Standard, predicting that Apple will take over TiVo and the reasons behind the potential acquisition. The issue is due to hit the newsstands on Monday, April 28th. Here are some selected excerpts of the soon-to-be published editorial (not yet available online): The beleaguered personal video recorder company is ripe for an Apple takeover. Everyone who has TiVo loves TiVo; it is to television what Macintosh was to computing: a revelation. Which is exactly why Apple should buy TiVo and once again redefine the intersection of culture and technology. Folks love TiVo for the same reason they loved the Mac in 1984 and the iPod in 2001: It gives control back to the end user. TiVo viewers call the shots regarding when, how, and soon; even where they watch. Once content or access is purchased, the end user is in charge, just like with the iPod. Battelle then describes why TiVo is in trouble, saying TiVo has a "Napster-like quality" and outlining how the entertainment industry is "scared silly" of the TiVo technology. Wall Street has caught on to this fact, and despite healthy subscriber gains, TiVo's stock, once at $70, is stuck in the single digits. Some pundits are predicting that the company will soon run out of cash. So it's time for Apple to step in. Steve Jobs is the only man in techland who can stand up to the content companies on his own terms. Not only does he understand the entertainment industry, his other company, Pixar, is a Hollywood hit machine, but he also deeply understands the consumer. Apple's "Rip. Mix. Burn." approach has captured the essence of how consumers feel about music: It's theirs. Beyond that, Jobs used the iPod to help curb music piracy: The device is wedded to one computer at a time, making tune theft more trouble than it's worth. TiVo should find a soft spot in Jobs's heart for other reasons. In January, TiVo announced that upcoming devices would use Apple's Rendezvous networking technology to allow TiVo-equipped TVs to play music and display photos stored on a Mac. Also, TiVo is similar to Jobs's erstwhile NeXT Software: an expensive and risky endeavor, but eerily prescient. When Jobs returned to Apple, he brought NeXT with him, and its core technologies are burrowed deep into OS X, the elegant operating system at the center of Apple's new "iLife" media strategy. Jobs could do the same with TiVo. With a depressed market cap and nearly 625,000 customers, TiVo is a steal. Jobs would have to unwind some messy licensing agreements, but he's done that before. His next step would be to apply Apple's design elegance and create an "iTV" device that integrates with Macintosh OS X, the Internet, and your cable or satellite box. Talk about a revolution. Once Apple turned on the marketing and PR offensive, we'd have one hell of a Hollywood drama unfolding. And with Jobs in the lead role, it'd be awfully fun to watch. The Business 2.0 website offers daily editorial features and columns, in addition to resources that give readers an opportunity to research issues and network with people who have similar interests. Visit the Business 2.0 website here. macdailynews.com