DEAR SIR,
I AM DR(MR.)S. JOHNSON , THE PERSONAL ACCOUNTING
OFFICER TO A FORENGNER, A NATIONAL OF YOUR COUNTRY,
WHO USED TO WORK WITH SHELL DEVELOPMENT COMPANY IN
NIGERIA. HERE IN AFTER SHALL BE REFERRED TO AS MY
CLIENT. ON THE 21ST OF APRIL 2000, MY CLIENT, HIS WIFE
AND THEIR THREE CHILDREN WERE INVOLVED IN A CAR
ACCIDENT ALONG SAGBAMA EXPRESS ROAD. ALL OCCUPANTS OF
THE VEHICLE UNFORTUNATELY LOST THERE LIVES.
SINCE THEN I HAVE MADE SEVERAL ENQUIRIES TO YOUR
EMBASSY TO LOCATE ANY OF MY CLIENTS EXTENDED RELATIVES
THIS HAS ALSO PROVED UNSUCCESSFUL. AFTER THESE SEVERAL
UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS, I DECIDED TO TRACE HIS SURNAME
OVER THE INTERNET, TO LOCATE ANY MEMBER OF HIS FAMILY
HENCE I CONTACTED YOU. I HAVE CONTACTED YOU TO ASSIST
IN REPARTRATING THE MONEY AND PROPERTY LEFT BEHIND BY
MY CLIENT BEFORE THEY GET CONFISICATED OR DECLARED
UNSERVICEABLE BY THE BANK WHERE THIS HUGE DEPOSITS
WERE LODGED.
PARTICULARLY, THE UNION BANK PLC WHERE THE DECEASED HAD
AN ACCOUNT VALUED AT ABOUT 20MILLION UNITED STATES
DOLLARS HAS ISSUED ME A NOTICE AS HIS ACCOUNTING
OFFICER TO PROVIDE THE NEXT OF KIN OR HAVE THE ACCOUNT
CONFISICATED WITHIN THE NEXT TEN OFFICIAL WORKING
DAYS. SINCE I HAVE BEEN UNSUCCESFULL IN LOCATING THE
RELATIVES FOR OVER 2 YEARS NOW I SEEK YOUR CONSENT TO
PRESENT YOU AS THE NEXT OF KIN OF THE DECEASED SINCE
YOU HAVE THE SAME SURNAME SO THAT THE PROCEEDS OF THIS
ACCOUNT VALUED AT 20MILLION DOLLARS CAN BE PAID TO YOU
AND THEN YOU AND ME CAN SHARE THE MONEY.
I HAVE ALL NECESSARY LEGAL DOCUMENTS THAT CAN BE USED
TO BACK UP ANY CLAIM WE MAY MAKE. ALL I REQUIRE IS
YOUR HONEST COOPERATION TO ENABLE US SEE THIS DEALT
THROUGH. I GUARANTEE THAT THIS WILL BE EXECUTED UNDER
A LEGITIMATE ARRANGEMENT THAT WILL PROTECT YOU FROM
ANY BREACH OF THE LAW. I WILL PROCURE ALL NECESSARY
LEGAL DOCUMENTS FURNISH ME WITH THE BELOW INFORMATION
TO ENABLE THE BANK TRANSFER THE FUND TO YOUR BANK
ACCOUNT. 1)YOUR FULL NAME AND CONTACT ADDRESS
2)YOUR TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBER FOR COMMUNICATION
PURPOSE
3)YOUR OCCUPATION, AGE AND POSITION
PLEASE GET IN TOUCH WITH ME THROUGH MY ALTERNATIVE
EMAIL ADDRESS: Email:sjohnson_sjohnson@latinmail.com
BEST REGARDS,
DR(MR)S. JOHNSON

I think this is too much pessimism! TiVo has already shown that they can focus on two distinct arenas simultaneously. They’ve been doing this with DirecTV for years. As a satisfied DirecTiVo customer, I found myself very green with envy as TiVo innovated and released features like HMO while DirecTV opted not to participate and the TiVo featureset under DirecTV was artificially limited. I don’t forsee the Comcast deal playing out so much differently. I think TiVo have already proven they can do this.

-m

I think Eric is right about the hedge. But I do believe that TiVo is going to get a cash payment up front for the integration work. But this amount probably won’t top $10MM or so. This is still a very small price to pay to get all that Comcast does out of this relationship (be it leverage, patent protection, additional subscribers, etc.).

As for TiVo lite. I believe that the announcement covers all of these items in a very broad brush. I believe that Comcast will open up services like moving content from the TiVo to the PC, because if doesn’t devalue their core distribution asset. However, what I am focusing on is Internet content delivery. This is a feature which will be more important than all others combined and I don’t believe Comcast has any intention of providing this functionality any time soon. It’s just too dangerous for them.

It is also developing software that lets users move recorded programs to laptop computers or hand-held video players for later viewing.

Stephen Burke, Comcast’s president, said that those extra features would appeal to some of the cable company’s customers.

The negativity seems to be stemming from the assumption that there will only be a basic DVR offered, a la DirecTV. I concede that the language they’re using is tricky enough that it’s a possibility. However, the evidence suggests that ALL of TiVo’s features will be available. Again I ask – why the assumption that the offering will be “TiVo lite”?

Yes you are right Om. Something is better than nothing and as much as I hate to admit it, having a dual tuner, HDTV capable unit with adequate storage is really 90% of the equation. Advanced networking a la TiVo to Go, Home Media option, etc. are nice and would be ideal in a perfect world.

As much as I hate the fact that DirecTV has dumbed down my current quad tuner HDTV DirecTV TiVo, I still use it far more than my non-HDTV single tuner MCE machine despite the MCE’s much superior home media and networking capabilities.

I’d just like to see someone finally build the “perfect” box.

Alex, you are right on with the integration of micro content COMBINED with a cable/satellite box. People need more than Akimbo. People need to be weaned off of cable and satellite and on to new internet content as you suggested in your email to me.

We should also think about the best niche content though to make them make the jump to buy this new multipurpose box.

My own thoughts are that initially this could focus on amateur athletics (little league, high school sports, etc.), local government and community stuff (planning meetings, school plays, etc.), religious programming (large congregational service broadcasts) and youth oriented indie type stuff (well made but still home made skate punk type stuff or the like) and easily produced reality television.

If my grandson plays little league in San Diego and I live in Buffalo New York, this might be just the thing to get me to buy a combined satellite/cable/microcontent box.

Someone will need to produce a guide and hire a team of editors to review, catalog, organize and rank this new internet content.

The perfect box should have quad tuners (2 analog 2 HD), have expandable storage, have full networking capabilities, have a sophisticated home media option, have a released SDK to encourage outside plug ins and development, AND have a sophisticated and proprietary microcontent platform.

The more sophisticated HME option will do things like aggregate content from copyright free places like the internet archive and display it in an easy to navigate on screen fashion.

If I can get Jack Johnson concerts on the Internet Archive, someone should build a plug in to have Jack Johnson’s Internet Archive posted concerts come up under “my music” in the HME option automatically. Ideally (although perhaps to the chagrin of free media advocates due to the excess bandwidth issues – and we might need to find a better way to compensate folks like the Internet Archive for our bandwidth hogging) smart HME software should scrape and collect content from any site that I enter into it. I should be able to provide http:// locations and then have the smart software go out and pull all .mp3 files from a site, all photographs from a photobloging site, etc. (feel free to take my photographs from Thomashawk.com at any time). This would all be for personal home use of course.

This content would then be aggregated into my home media library for later consumption on my 43� plasma.

Combine all of this fantastic microcontent stuff with the perfect completely networked quad tuner cable and satellite HDTV box with easily expandable storage and that dog will hunt!

On the other hand, this is not what Comcast necessarily wants to see you do.

I think you’re right that they need to stay focused on Internet video, deals like Netflix, and other innovations, but I’m also saying that will be very difficult with Comcast driving TiVos engineering priorities. (Netflix, for example. Why would Comcast open up their network to a competitor? Not through the ComcasTiVoMoto box.)

As to Tom’s comments… I’ll just repost from my e-mail to him re: Ramsay…

As for the Ramsay debacle, I’m not sure what the hell was going on there. I have a VERY hard time believing that Ramsay had no clue about the
Comcast deal when that call went down. I believe that was just Ramsay
speaking his mind. I think he’s not happy about this entire situation and
will take the pot shots when he can. CableCARD is his last hope of really
bringing TiVo back towards his original vision. I think he’s going to
fight like hell to keep the cablecos honest on this one.

As for the options, I would see this as a board feeling guilty about
essentially taking a founder’s company in a direction that he plainly
wasn’t happy about. This is “sleep well at night money,â€? not for Ramsay,
but for the board.

thanks for the attention, Om.

Nice work. Thanks for pointing us to this interesting perspective on the situation. Following is the comment that I left over at Democracy in Media.

At present the advertising revenue and what not represent less than 10% but with a significantly larger install base that Comcast could represent the advertising and other services revenue will most likely become more significant.

Lots of unanswered questions. How will NetFlix fit into the picture? Will the TiVo Comcast box really have any teeth or will it just be a dumbed down TiVo like the dumbded down version of Microsoft’s Media Center that Comcast in now testing in Washington — the Foundation box?

And how crazy was it that Ramsay was villifying the cable companies as a “monopoly” on the analyst call just last week when asked about the CableCARD issue? I have to assume that at the same time they were negotiating with Comcast. What a strange tact to take unless it was to purposely throw people off or here’s a really wild scenario, unless Ramsay never even knew about the deal. What if there were other decision makers at TiVo that in order to stave off the declining stock price made the deal without Ramsay knowing.

If what the New York Times printed previously about a Comcast deal falling apart when Ramsay wanted more money and more control over the box, could Ramsay really have been totally out of the loop and this happened behind his back.

Total and complete conjecture and conspiracy analysis, absolutely unfounded in any way, but how crazy would that have been?

And what’s with the announced award of 250,000 options at the low stock price to Ramsay only a few days prior to the big Comcast announcement?

What’s the chance that some anonymous individual could leak the real story on some comment board (like this) somewhere?