TiVo Blog » TiVo Needs To Learn From Microsoft

TiVo Needs To Learn From Microsoft

Many people are talking about the fact that Microsoft has landed a major contract with Comcast. The agreement allows Microsoft to deploy a set top box running Media Center Edition (MCE) to 1 million Comcast subscribers starting November 15th.

This is obviously not good for TiVo. As we have seen in the past with Netscape, whenever Microsoft decides that they are going to dominate a particular technology, they often end up on top. I know that TiVo has talked about getting a deal with a major cable company however; to my knowledge, they have not been successful. I have an idea of what you are thinking……TiVo gets a lot of their subscribers from DirecTV. That is fine however; as we all know, the DirecTV & TiVo relationship has been on the rocks as of late. A good move for TiVo may be for them to concentrate on getting several cable companies to use their product. I know it is easier said then done however; I think it is necessary at this point! TiVo is now in a battle against one of the biggest giants in the world. Drastic times call for drastic measures. TiVo needs to act quickly!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2004 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Comcast, TiVo News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “TiVo Needs To Learn From Microsoft”

TheFigs Weblog says:
November 10th, 2004 at 12:31 am |
Will Microsoft Kill Tivo?
The Seattle Times reports some details about the new deal with Microsoft and Comcast. The new dual-tuner digital recievers will be released in Washington State first. It will alow users to have “Tivo-like” functionality. This could hurt Tivo signific…
Xueilonox says:
November 10th, 2004 at 2:11 am |
Doesn’t Microsoft own a piece of Comcast? If so, then this really isn’t a “win” for Microsoft, it’s an obvious move. One they probably should have exploited earlier. It’s apparent that the cable guys aren’t going to let another company sit between them and their customers. My guess is that Tivo doesn’t want to take a back seat and have been shut out to this point. Short of building customized Tivo’s for each operator and then surrendering control of the tracking data, I’m not sure what they can do to turn it around.
Alex says:
November 10th, 2004 at 8:38 am |
I didn’t know that Micro$oft owned a piece of Comcast. I will have to look into that…
Will says:
November 10th, 2004 at 11:57 am |
Yeah it’s true. In an article I read recently, Bill Gates invested $5B in Comcast.

Two days later, Roberts received a call from Microsoft’s CFO, who said that Gates had asked him to explore Roberts’ idea. “Thirty days later, they put $1 billion into our company just to send a message that they thought broadband was the future. It was a shot heard round the world in our business.” Microsoft later raised its stake to $5 billion. Since then, the cable industry has invested $85 billion in the installation of fiber optics. Today, it provides 55% of the country’s broadband service.

source: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1069
bob says:
November 11th, 2004 at 12:18 pm |
How do we know that they haven’t been trying to do deals with the cable companies? It might be impossible due to cables lack of inovation and future thinking…
Alex says:
November 11th, 2004 at 2:19 pm |
How do we know that they haven�t been trying to do deals with the cable companies? It might be impossible due to cables lack of inovation and future thinking�

I’m not saying that they haven’t tried. All I’m saying is that they haven’t been successful up until this point….
TiVoBlog.com » Blog Archive » It’s Official, TiVo To Partner With Comcast says:
March 15th, 2005 at 11:45 am |
[...] omcast (Reuters). This is obviously big news for TiVo. I’ve said a number of times (1, 2) that TiVo needed to setup a deal with a major c [...]