Word: tivos
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...many ways, TiVo is kind of an uber computer. It's supremely high-tech, built on the ultra-stable Linux operating system, the genius of which is you never notice it's there. The box is doing things the Internet revolution has so far failed to manage, like distributing independent movie shorts submitted to websites on a screen larger than a postage stamp (after signing a deal last week with Atom Films whereby TiVo customers will get Atom's stuff for free...
...weeks ago, San Jose-based TiVo Inc. won the patent for Personal Video Recording. Wall Street approved and the stock shot up 72% in a day. That might have been because TiVo could now theoretically ask Microsoft, owners of Ultimate TV, and Philips, owners of Replay TV, to take out licenses. Or it may just be because the system was formally described in the patent as "multimedia timewarping." C'mon, how cool is that...
...Unabashed TiVo evangelism aside, it is a source of constant surprise to me that the company is not actually doing as well as the press releases suggest. Less than 400,000 units have been sold over the last four years. It's a nice figure, but nowhere near the amount projected or the amount needed to crack the 21 million-unit cable-box market, which is prime TiVo territory...
...Especially not when Replay TV, based up the road in Mountain View, just signed a deal with Motorola to install its PVR in up to five million cable boxes. Talk about leapfrogging. TiVo is feeling the heat: it just laid off 23% of its staff and said it would not be seeking extra funding this year...
...saving, big ticket electronics items go out the window. It might also come down to the monthly fee of $9.95, which is a ludicrous imposition in an medium where we're not used to regular payments (whoever heard of bribing a machine to record TV for you?), and if TiVo is listening to its customers the fee will be first...