Comcast shuns TiVo and will test Motorola/Moxi set-top-box

This is starting to feel like DVR week to me. For TiVo, this could be one of the longer weeks in the firms history. Yesterday Comcast announced that they will trial a "Motorola Broadband Media Center With Moxi." This device is packed with features including:

• DVR functionality


• Dual tuners


• Some of the test units will be HDTV compatible


• Some of the test units will be networking capabilities to pull photos, music and videos off of a home computer


• And apparently, this device may have a cable modem

So what does this all mean for TiVo, the darling of the DVR industry, which currently has about a 39% share of the DVR market. It means that the odds that they will reach a deal with a large cable company are now very slim, and that they are more reliant than ever on DirecTV for near term subscriber growth. The bad news on the DirecTV front is that today NDS (Which is owned by News Corp. the same parent company as DirecTV) has come out and stated they want to fight it out with TiVo for the DirecTV business. So assuming that TiVo can't get a deal with the cable firms where should they head?

With a law suit under way against EchoStar and a deal already in place with DirecTV, there aren't many other domestic deals to be done with service providers. So one option would be to sit back, relax and be happy as a niche player in a market that will grow incredibly in the next few years. They could become the "Apple of the DVR market" and just allow their loyal customers to keep them profitable and afloat as a niche player. The other option is to fight back.

To fight back TiVo needs to find other ways into the home other than the set-top-box route it has taken to date. Having seen the possibility of not getting a major service provider deal, TiVo began partnering with the makers of DVD recorder boxes. Additionally, the firm bought a home networking startup called Strangberry in the hopes of adding better home networking functionality to the service. So I believe the firm now needs to transform itself from a "DVR" company to a true home entertainment company by striking out and making some of their own interesting alliances. I posted yesterday about the potential of a partnership between TiVo and Netflix. Maybe they should also consider partnering with RealNetworks for a music subscription offering. The transition to the digital home is well underway, and I believe the next 4 - 6 months will help define what role TiVo will play in this market.