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Cisco buying TiVo rumor?

Thomas Hawk sent me a pointer to Cnet publishing a rumor that TiVo might be bought by Cisco. Both parties involved aren't talking, which doesn't say much, but this looks somewhat plausable after Cisco's acquisition of Linksys a couple years back and Scientific Atlanta more recently. Of course, Cisco is in the business of networking. With Linksys, though it was a push into the home market for Cisco, they haven't really pushed Linksys to make smart home products -- Cisco has continued to focus on making good cheap network hardware. It's too early to tell what they'll do in the set-top box market.

I could imagine a post-Cisco TiVo could really be an attractive smart home concept that could act as a DVR, wireless hub, music/video network streaming station, among many other things. I'm not entirely sure Cisco wants to move in that direction though, away from their core business of networking products for the enterprise and home. They'd have to dip heavily into the software world to run something like TiVo and build a smart home operating system and they'd have to get in bed with content companies that would fight tooth and nail to make sure no free movies or shows are moved around anyone's network without their say.

So on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being never ever and 10 being totally likely to happen any day now, I'd put a Cisco buying TiVo rumor at a 6.

by Matt Haughey January 30, 2006 in News

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