AOL to make bid for TiVo????

Just in case the link dies....

11:04AM TiVo rises on rumor that AOL considering bid (TIVO) 4.34 +0.34: Trading floors note that AOL currently holds a stake in TIVO. According to TiVo's 10-K, the company and AOL entered into a $200 mln investment agreement in June 2000. The investment is part of a 3-yr deal, in which TiVo was to become an AOL TV programming partner offering AOL TV subscribers access to features of the TiVo Service.

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Actually how would TiVo benefit or be hurt by AOL? Most important thing for me is that developers keep producing updates to any bugs or system changes (like dish having locals on ch 2-69, etc) and the guide continues to be available. Never used AOL more than 1 month in 1993 so don't even know their pros/cons as an ISP.

I know that AOL/TW wouldn't put any money into R&D and puts ads all over the place.... Thats good enough for me to be worried...

Help??? Talk about not being focused on the product. Look what they did to Netscape! They killed it. If it wasn't for Project Mozilla, there wouldn't be an Netscape 6 or 7. I'd rather see Sony, Phillips or other large electronics manufacturer take charge. Sony and Phillips know how to sell product. AOL would just screw it up. All they know how to do is send millions of AOL disks to people...

One thing to thank AOL for: you dont have to spend any money for coasters anymore. Also, those CDs do make great pizza cutters....lol.

However, you may want to keep those AOL CDs handy. One collector has saved every AOL coaster ever since the online service existed!! He found out that a first edition that came out when the service existed was worth 200 bucks.

Or you could do this with them...

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/10/18/1415211.shtml?tid=120

Tivo and AOL recently reduced their mutual involvement and Tivo returned a bunch of money to AOL (not all the money but a lot of it). AOL also seems to scrapped their AOL/TV with TIvo project.

It would seems to be another 180º degree turn to now be SO interested in Tivo they'd try to acquire it.

There's no synergy between the two products (AOL's online/internet software and Tivo's PVR software). What, is AOL going use their network for Tivo dial-ins? And host channel listings on their servers? I don't see that as any compelling reason to acquire TiVo.

What, is AOL going use their network for Tivo dial-ins?

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AOL also owns Time Warner. I would suspect you will see Time Warner branded TIVO cable boxes for their systems.

How did AOL kill Netscape. It was dead before it was acquired by AOL. Netscape sought out AOL to avoid bankruptcy. Furthermore, Project Mozilla was started by Netscape before the acquisition, with the avowed purpose of producing the next generation of Netscape's browsers through open source programming.

So whats your point. Netscape was dying, but it had more than 30% of the market when AOL bought it. Now it has less than 10%. While Mozilla was started BEFORE AOL, AOL did nothing to foster its growth and tried to kill it many times. Netscape would have died even without AOL, but AOL was supposed to save it, not kill it.

What's your point? You said it. Netscape would have died anyway. They haven't died. Nobody can compete with Microsoft putting Internet Explorer in its operating system for free. There is nothing AOL could do to stem the tide. Nevertheless, Nertscape is still out there. I have never seen any evidence that AOL tried to kill AOL either.

Whats your problem? I said AOL killed it faster than it would have died anyway. TiVo is dying, if AOL buys it, it will die quicker. If Sony or Phillips buy it, it might have a chance, just like if another company bought Netscape, it might have had a chance. What don't you understand? TiVo might not survive and Netscape might not survive, but you can't argue that AOL might not put the money into TiVo just like they didn't put the money into Netscape. Return On Investment (ROI) isn't something that AOL understands. They spend billions on these companies and then don't do anything with them.

AOL + TiVo = Bad
TiVo + 0 = Unknown
TiVo+ Sony/Phillips = Better

Simple enough?

Originally posted by Rking401
AOL also owns Time Warner. I would suspect you will see Time Warner branded TIVO cable boxes for their systems.

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Time Warner uses Scientific Atlanta boxes. They are deploying their DVR boxes in select markets, and will be deploying them in more markets soon. I don't think TWC is going to deploy a fully integrated TiVo box a la DirecTiVo on their cable systems anytime soon.

What I think you're looking at there is a way to send ads to a PVR and promote AOL/TW shows...

The Scientific Atlanta-TW PVR combo is being offered here. On their promo commercials I see on analog cable at school they make it sound like PVRs just came out last month. HELLO TW combo DBS PVRs and SA PVRs have been out for years. I can barley stand to watch cable, no matter what show I watch, during every commercial break there are multiple commercials promoting TW digital cable, RoadRunner, this new PVR, bashing DBS and a lot of inserted commercials promoting AOL-TW products and entities. TW (and AOL) both had their chance in this house and blew it so many times. I would hate to see a decent company like TiVo be bought out by that mega conglomerate.

So, does anyone think that AOLTimeWarner is going to put Turner VP Jamie Kellner in charge of Tivo???