[ZeoTiVo]

Two things to look for:

Competing boxes launched in the fall.

Holiday/post Holiday period.

I think TiVo has little margin on this box at all. any price drop would surely be a subsidy which they never ruled out on the TiVo HD of course. I do agree that the current S3 may well drop in price at least on the street

 

[ZeoTiVo]

I'm sure we will see an actual tear down cost estimate on the box fairly soon and I expect it will come in somewhere around the $200-$225 range. Since they probably sell to distributors for around $240-$250 they are probably making a small profit or breaking even.

The S3 was not menat to sell in volume and the TiVo HD is. I expect some nervous execs are checking daily sales figures this week

Companies don't typically pad the cost of a retail product with the costs to develop the product or do continued work on it and other products, that is a myth as these costs are simply fixed company overhead that they carry from year to year.

yes but it does drive what kind of margin they will accept when pricing a new product and deciding if they will continue development on such.

as it stands any rebate or lifetime transfer on the TiVo HD will be a marketing cost for TiVo. I am still holding out fro a lifetime transfer offer though

 

[ZeoTiVo]

If I were Tivo I would be a lot less worried about lifetime transfers and a lot more concerned about win backs and new Tivo subscribers.

True enough.

 

[ZeoTiVo]

So what was in that Digeo Moxi press kit I got just a few weeks ago? The only missing pieces were prices and hard drive sizes, both of which were alluded to in conversation.

did they finish cable labs certification yet? I thought they were kind of quite about that before.

 

[ZeoTiVo]

If Tivo is smart, they'll do this:

1. Make the Tivo HD free with a 2 year contract
2. Reduce the subscription price to 10$ and make it the same for everyone(no multiple tivo discounts)
3. Fire unnecessary employees to make a profit(trim down the company)

Making a tivo series3 lite would be easy. Just:
- Eliminate the OTA tuner(most people use cablecards anyway)
- Eliminate analog cable tuner(again, who uses this?)
- Lower the hard drive space

I would not strip a tuner out, as this is becomming a necessity for DVRs as a lot of shows play at the same time. This would yield a perfect DVR which could be subsidized to be very cheap, and maybe even free(with rebates, and commitments).

well with such keen observations as "a lot of shows play at the same time" it looks like you have 1 out of 3 on the design for the TiVo HD. Yet somehow you managed to get even lower score on the business plan.