Michael Gartenberg: Apple and TiVo – I think not. But there is another 🙂 Earlier today I saw the Apple / TiVo rumor hit CNBC but missed the actual broadcast (and of course with no TiVo hooked up to the broadcast in question couldn’t rewind). Needless to say TiVo is probably dirt cheap right now and the cost to acquire them would be insignificant for any number of candidates, Apple, Comcast, DirecTV, Netflix, Sony, etc.
Further, when you take Apple’s recent high flying stock price it’s not even like real money. Apple’s stock price could go up two percent in a day and that’s all the money it would need via a stock swap to buy TiVo outright.
Michael Gartenberg thinks Sony is a much more likely candidate than Apple.
Although one could make an argument that there still might be an opportunity to pick up TiVo’s most important assets (it’s customer base and it’s brand) in bancruptcy court, really, $353 million seems like such a paltry sum. Somebody really should just hurry up and buy the beast.