2011 Prediction #10: Apple Buys Time Warner Cable | Hacker News Reader

2011 Prediction #10: Apple Buys Time Warner Cable

cringely.com

34 pointsrfreytag35 comments

I think another quickly growing internet company did the same thing in 2000 and was never the same after. Buying Time Warner will become analogous to invading Russia.

I'll throw out a good idea for Apple - buy Tivo. Price tag is right (around $1B). Access to a TON of good IP. Access to good software they can build off of and customize for Apple TV. Combine the good of Apple TV (streaming services, iTunes integration), the good of Tivo (great user interface, good hardware, apps), add an App Store...you might have a good product there.

$1b seems awfully high for TiVo. I'd peg them at half that or less. Their product although arguably superior to their competitors has been commoditized to no end. How can people buy ticks when comcast or directv offer their DVr "free"

It's all about their IP. If they win the current case with Dish they'll get hundreds of millions up front and earn monthy for each dish customer using a DVR. They'll also be able to go after other companies offering DVRs.

It all comes down to IF they win. I doubt anyone will buy them until that gets resolved.

I buy TiVos when I can get a lifetime subscription. One price, no recurring monthly or yearly bills. This usually happens around Christmas and for older models (Series 3 TiVo and earlier nowadays). Also, the box is mine.

I'm sure if I got a DVR from a cable or satellite provider, the monthly service cost would be included in my bill for as long as I have the device (a never-ending cost). I am essentially renting a DVR from the cable company. No thanks.

Buy Time Warner and Tivo. Keep them as a separate unit. Put the Tivo people in charge of the Time Warner folks. Make the transition to "new media" gradual.

On second thought, no. That would be like volunteering for the albatross. Time Warner is in the business both Apple and Tivo are trying to disrupt.

Just one man's opinion, but as a tivo early adopter whose tivos have been gathering dust for some time now, I think DVR is a transitional technology - something that only makes sense in an environment where bandwidth is poor and rights access is difficult. Apple TV is only really inferior to a platform like boxee in so much as apple chooses to make it so, it wouldn't be hard to duplicate a rights environment like that if they wanted to. I wonder if the ipod would have enjoyed such success if they had never supported anything but fairplay encumbered media.

Which isn't to say that Time Warner makes any more sense. Apple does seem to have a fondness for increasing their vertical integration, what about someone like Infineon? Radio components and TCG style security both are big issues for aapl for the foreseeable future, exclusively designed components there could have as big of an impact as an exclusive cpu.

Another man's opinion, but I'll have cable as long as that's where sports are. The fact that I can't watch baseball on my Boxee/AppleTV/ETC means it's not the only set top box I'm going to use. I'd happily pay a good amount for it, like MLB.tv (which is great if you don't like the home team), but there's just not a way for me to do that currently.

This is huge. NFL will be the last to go, and it's the biggest.

The NFL is at least mostly on OTA broadcasts that can be picked up well with a cheap antenna. There are only a few OTA broadcast baseball games with my team per season (when it's the Fox Saturday Baseball game). All the others are on a regional sports network, Sun Sports. They're in HD and look great, but cable/satellite is the only way to get them.

I agree, but local TV and radio stations keep online services from streaming sports events to people in that area.

Also, sports is somewhat unique in that the value is all in seeing it live. Personally speaking, once I know the final score of a game, watching a replay of it is worthless. Highlights are one thing, but watching the entire game when you already know who wins, makes no sense to me.

(disclaimer: I've never had or used a TiVo so maybe I'm missing something)

I don't really see why Apple would be interested in TiVo? TiVo allows you to record content and watch it whenever you feel like it. It gives you control on the schedule and makes everything on-demand.

But Apple doesn't need that since their model is already all on-demand in iTunes. There's probably good talent and IP there, but I'm not sure the product is of any interest for them in itself.

For selfish purposes, I'd like to see them buy a US cell-phone carrier, invest in better coverage and bandwidth, and have a reasonable tethering option.

As laughable as Microsoft buying Rimm. Why do people think these big companies will spend all their money on one big "splash"?

There's a zero percent chance this will happen.

OK, maybe not TW but the idea of Apple or Google buying a large content company is not so far fetched. In fact, given how quickly the cable + content guys grouped up and pretty much killed Google TV, I think the only way for iTV or Google TV to succeed is if they can break the stronghold by buying one a TV content company.

It would be one thing if TW were the only content provider out there but they're not. If apple were to buy any media company the others would be less likely to deal with them and start cutting them off. Apple creates products to view content with, they don't create content themselves.

If apple were to buy TW and I am not saying Apple will, but if they do, the market will be driven by customer demand. Enabling part of the market true IPTV experience will start pressuring cable companies to open up. Since IPTV is arguably superior technology customers will demand and in case when they have choice will prefer true Apple TV like services over traditional cable.

At the right price point, buying a current content provide would turn out to be a good move.

To be fair there is at least a .001% chance this will happen - stranger and dumber things have happened.

Microsoft might not have bought rim, but they did buy Danger.

Why do people think Apple will make a huge acquisition? There biggest purchase by far was NeXT for 400m back in '97 with PA Semi and Quattro coming in 2nd/3rd at ~275m. A 30 Billion dollar purchase doesn't seem at all in their nature. Apple builds products and purchase companies as talent/ip acquisitions to help them reach their goals.

Because they aren't paying dividends and just building up mounds of cash. Which is a pretty weird way to run a business.

Most of the big tech companies have massive amounts of cash. Sure some give a dividend but its small amout and once you do that you stop being seen as growth company.

Im guessing they will use the cash reserves to fund their own growth. They just bought HP's old campus in Cupertino and will spend quite a bit on the build out.

Because Steve Jobs basically said he would, and prices are low.

Has Cringely ever made an accurate prediction? I've seen him linked to so many times, and each time it's with some eye-rollingly ridiculous claim, that no one ever seems to follow up on (or sometimes claims that are obvious to anyone paying any attention at all, or so ill-specified that you can never really call them right or wrong). I don't really understand why anyone links to him; he's not a particularly interesting writer, and he doesn't have a very good track record of making predictions or revealing anything that's not commonly known.

If Apple buys anyone big, it will be Disney. [prediction #1]

Why would they do that? Disney already does pretty much anything Apple asks them to, and acquiring them would make Apple direct competitors with the other media companies whose content fills out iTunes. The two companies have very little overlap, so there's not much of a case for doing it to eliminate competition or to make the joint operation more efficient. And Jobs already sits on the board at Disney and owns a ton of shares, so where's his motivation to push for the deal coming from, given that he already has a great deal of power and money from the current setup without the day-to-day headaches of managing a massive media company?

I'm not betting on a $5 billion+ acquisition by Apple any time soon. But my prediction is that Disney is the target IF Apple spends billions on a big acquisition.

Apple would buy Disney for the same reason Ted Turner bought MGM/UA. If you are going to be a media distribution company (which is where Apple is headed) and you want total control (which Jobs always does), then owning content is part of the strategy.

The fact that Jobs sits on the board and owns a bunch of stock is evidence of his personal interest in Disney, not evidence against it. From a branding standpoint there is no better combination than Apple and Disney - don't be like Cringly and live between the Atlantic and Pacific - think worldwide. Jobs isn't insane enough to spend billions on a US cable network just to shut it down on the off chance that everyone in North Carolina will start using MobileMe 2.0.

BTW, Owning Disney would allow Jobs to dictate terms to other content distribution channels.

> then owning content is part of the strategy.

Why doesn't Apple buy the companies behind the best iPad/iPhone apps to make them iOS-only?

I mean, it would make sense in a way, and in the "Console Wars" console-makers have been doing this since the Nintendo-Sega days, buying studios and making exclusive games.

They don't buy them because: 1. iOS apps don't cost Apple anything to develop. 2. iOS app sales provide Apple with a 30% margin. 3. The distribution of iOS apps is completely under Apple's control. 4. They can always incorporate any important functionality into iOS. 5. iOS apps aren't content.

>iOS apps aren't content.

Under what reasonable definition of content is this true? Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies sure feel like content to me.

Does someone collect a license fee every time they are presented?

Could never happen. Disney has a $75B market cap - it would take at least $100B to take them over (roughly 1/3 of Apple's market cap).

Having ~$50B in liquid assets and Steve Jobs owning ~7% of the target company are good arguments to finance a hypothetical deal of that scope.

Steve Jobs's stake doesn't just fold into Apple. But, it doesn't have to be cash -- could be a merger (or partially one).

Steve Jobs already owns 7.3% of Disney - I don't think Steve will go for Disney anytime soon but who knows.

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