The Tivo offering are for stand-alone Tivo Boxes. Both DirecTV and Comcast have a subset or basic Tivo functionality. I would guess that once cable customers have the Tivo Experience that they will want the full product. The older Tivo Series 1 is the only box not internet ready. Those boxes haven’t been sold new in years. Tivo reports that over 60% of new service contracts are connected to Tivo by the Internet.

The business model is fine…..you forgot to mention that Tivo has gone International – Canada, Mexico and soon Australia will be selling Tivo boxes. DirecTV – their mistake, which they almost came out and said at the last Conference call – having to support NewsCorp family NDS . Sit back….Google, Yahoo, Amazon will scoop up Tivo as soon as the court case is settled – either way the verdict goes.

All these new announcements about TV services are a total smokescreen, they apply to so few customers as to be entirely meaningless.

They don’t apply to DirectTiVo customers, they don’t apply to new Comcast customers who have just begun to sign up for TiVo software on their Comcast DVRs, they don’t apply to older TiVo models that can’t connect to the Internet or newer models that don’t happen to be connected.

They are all a PR smokescreen designed to divert attention from the fact that TiVo *still* has no sustainable business model.

With their recent patent court wins they may still be able to develop one based on licensing their IP, but not if investors stop funding their ongoing losses before they can manage it.