TiVo held their quarterly call yesterday. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of technological specifics suited for a gadget blog such as ours. From where we’re sitting, it seems TiVo’s current focus is expanding their DVR business through MSO partnerships (Virgin, DirecTV, RCN, etc) and continued patent litigation. Interestingly, their R&D and legal budgets will be increasining in lockstep… with no mention of expanded marketing or advertising. From Seeking Alpha’s transcript:
we’re expecting our total legal spend to more than double from the approximately $23 million we spent in the last fiscal year.
R&D spend to increase by $25 million to $30 million compared to the prior year
As I posted elsewhere, the current US pay TV market is hostile to independent players like TiVo. And why they’re no longer independent. One can hope something like AllVid materializes and changes the dynamics. Until then, retail TiVo DVRs will remain a niche product. But one they hopefully continue to develop.