Advice to TiVo: get your software onto PCs

Despite the regular predictions of its demise (and we're probably due for another spate any week now), TiVo says it managed to add another 264,000 subscribers last quarter, brining them to a grand total of 1.6 million customers. That is still way short of the kinds of numbers everyone expected them to have by now and they're still losing money, but considering all the competition they have these days it's not so bad, and the company says they'll hit "sustainable profitability" (whatever that means) by the end of their next fiscal year.

So here's some free advice for TiVo: create a version of your software that works on a regular PC and then either license it to manufacturers so they can put it on their PCs instead of Microsoft's Media Center operating system or sell it directly to consumers so they can install it themselves (or do both). Like it or not, standalone digital video recorders (like the ones that run TiVo now) are going to disappear and be replaced by both amped-up cable set-top boxes and living room PCs, and since TiVo isn't having much luck getting cable operators to put TiVo software in cable boxes, you're going to have to do the next best thing and try and get yourselves onto PCs. Yes, there are plenty of other excellent options already out there for the PC (we won't bother naming them all), but TiVo has the best user interface, not to mention great brand recognition, which means you have a small window of opportunity to become THE digital video recording software for the living room PC. The alternative is to become merely a footnote in the history of digital entertainment.