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Should MSFT, YHOO, or GOOG buy TiVo?
PRV Wire's Chris Tew has written an interesting editorial in which he argues that "There is one company that Google, Microsoft or Yahoo could acquire to ensure they will be well placed on the living room TV, and that company is TiVo." Chris rules out Microsoft because they've already got their foot in your living room with Windows Media Center and because TiVo runs on Linux. Yahoo! and TiVo already have a partnership and YHOO has a history of big acquisitions. "Securing its services on TiVo," says Chris, "could give Yahoo an advantage it desperately needs" over Google. Google, of course, is also a big spender, and would love to get its ads into the living room.In the end, Chris puts his money on Yahoo!, but I wouldn't rule out Microsoft so quickly. Microsoft already has a hardware arm and could easily merge the Media Center and TiVo product lines with a branded TiVo version of Windows MCE, and many of the TiVo faithful wouldn't bat an eyelash. In the end, I think it would be ideological, rather than technical, differences that would hamstring a MSFT-TiVo buy-out. But I guess I'll side with Chris on this one--of those three companies, Yahoo! seems like the best candidate, and may be foaming at the mouth for a new avenue of expansion to pursue.
Comments
2
Subscribe to commentsStevenOct 27th 2006 3:53PM
If Microsoft bought TiVo, I would sell both of my TiVos in a heartbeat. Talk about ruining a decent platform.
ChrisOct 28th 2006 10:31AM
I think AOL would be a better fit than any of those you mentioned. With it's HUGE base of films and songs tucked under Warner Bros and it's other media labels it could provide a Pay Per View service right out of the gate. It could replace the Radio, Picture, Weather, Games, every advanced feature that pretty much currently exists on Tivo with it's own (already existing) services.