Several bidders line up to buy Motorola's set-top box division
By Donald Melanson 
posted December 22nd 2009 10:19PM
posted December 22nd 2009 10:19PM
It hasn't been much of a secret that Motorola is looking to sell its set-top box business, and it looks like several potential suitors are already lining up to place bids on the division now that the company has put the word out in a slightly more formal manner. While everything is obviously still in the earliest stages, Reuters reports that a number of major private equity firms -- including Bain Capital, TPG Capital, and the Blackstone Group -- have informed Motorola of their interest in the business, with other companies including equipment maker Arris also said to be considering a bid. Details are otherwise a bit light, as you might expect, but at least some folks have valued the business as high as $4.5 billion -- although other "sources familiar with the matter" say the bidding will likely stay under $4 billion.
I bid $4,500,000,001.
@Ipwnnubletz : I would click on the 'Buy it Now' button and get for $1 less than your bid...days before the auction is over!
@Ipwnnubletz
This would be a slick deal if I could get 10% bing cash back on it.
@Ipwnnubletz
Where's that 'Make an Offer' button?
@fatslug good idea.
lots of zero bidders i bet.
That's going to have a big paypal fee.
I should have enough in my Paypal account...
I'm guessing that's against Paypal's rules.
Man I love it when you guys do photoshop ebay. Gets me every time.
I'm like "Whaa?" and then I'm like "damn!" then I feel like and gullible idiot that doesn't speak proper grammar.
@intrglctcrevfnk
I was thinking, "They're selling Motorola on eBay?" And then it clicked, and I felt like a complete dumbass. :-(
@intrglctcrevfnk Totally agree - love the picture!
@intrglctcrevfnk get the FireBug plugin for Firefox.
You could change anything on any site with no photoshop.
http://getfirebug.com/
All my boxes are Motorola's, they better replace the little sticker on all of them when this deal is over. Otherwise there'll be hell to pay.
@Fadakar They were General Instruments before Motorola bought them (for $11B back in 1999--all of Motorola is only worth $18B now and they were worth $50B back in 1999). I think mostly nobody noticed the name on their STBs then or now really. People just take whatever the cable company gives them.
Arris just bought Digeo. Buying Moto would make them the only competitor to SA/Cisco.
Realistically speaking, none of the other potential bidders listed know squat about the cable industry. They're thinking "we own the box that connects the last mile to your house." What they don't know is the cable industry controls everything that can happen on that box, and they're not going to give you, as the box maker, any more money than they already do.
@mannyvel
I hope it's Arris. That would fit in with their home integration plan and also mean the possibility of an Arris branded SDV adapter for the Moxi so I don't have to use the piece-of-crap Cisco box that TWC give out.
@arkweld the SDV box is tied to your provider's headend equipment. You're on a Cisco system, you get a Cisco SDV box. That's the price of staying the hell away from your provider's DVR.
I heard from a reliable source that McDonald's is in the bidding, as they are looking to replace all of their grills with something more effective at cooking meat to proper temperatures.
$10 for shipping!? I guess that's how they get you.
I announce I am buying the Moto cable box business and will immediately rename the product as HighestRanked Cable Boxes and all you chumps will have to pay up
These damm boxes still unhackable other than clones, nvram, yada yada yada.
You know, Motorola could've probably saved themselves millions over the years if they just removed all of the ports on the back that the cable companies block you from using, like firewire, ethernet, usb, eSATA (etc.)
Seriously, these boxes are capable of doing so much, and the cable companies dumb the hell out of them. Pisses me off.
@Spiffypants My cable company cablevision lets you use the firewire and esata ports. when you put in an esata drive it ads space to the dvr.
@Spiffypants I 100x agree w/u
It's strange Motorola would want to spin off their set top business when they are so deeply entrenched in cable: E-QAM, CMTS, FTTH, cable modems, management, conditional access, encryption, distribution, infrastructure, etc. That's like being a car maker who sells the part of their company that makes the steering wheel for the car. They do just about *everything* else in the cable market.
@(Unverified)
Not really... if the set top (commodity) business margin is crap, then sell it and keep the rest of the infrastructure. With your car maker analogy, Toyota for example does not own the company that makes the tires; i.e. the commodity component.
@(Unverified) True, but owning both ends of the wire has always been what kept both Motorola and Scientific Atlanta in charge of the North American market, and made it difficult for others to penetrate. Once they lose that advantage, whose to say what will happen next to all that nice high margin Motorola head-end equipment...
@(Unverified)
Motorola has historically used the set top business to lock providers into other infrastructure technologies. Chiefly via DC2 encryption and access control. The problem I see for them is once that lock-in is gone there's really not much reason to use most of their other infrastructure products. CMTS, cable modems, physical plant, etc are agnostic but they are falling behind Cisco and other competitors in all those categories. Now they're opening the door for Cisco to come in and compete on encryption & access control too. I would guess they just want to exit cable entirely and can't possibly sell the whole thing off at once so they're doing it in pieces. They have enough legacy set tops out there to ensure their encryption & access control business won't disappear over night. I bet they'll drop the other pieces too.
I would 'Buy it now" but the shipping cost is a bitch.
Back in 1999 Motorola's Market Cap was $50B. Right now they're worth $11B. Back in 1999 Motorola bought General Instruments for $11B. Now they want $4.5B? That's almost half Motorola's Market Cap for a division that has lower margins that the rest of Motorola.
Seems like a better number would be more like 20% of 11B or maybe $2.2B... especially when you consider that the STB business won't be worth as much to anybody else as it is to Motorola (since it brings in sales of other Motorola products that are required to use their encryption and authentication tech etc).
hahah people in line to buy crap... hahahahaha
my brand new moto DVR (DCH3416?) randomly won't allow me to pause or rewind live TV. The only way to fix this is to change the channel away, and back to the one I want to pause. Or, to hit record, go into the recording and forward to the place I wanted to rewind to... yah... Moto can't program themselves out of a paper bag...
I doubt anyone is in line for this crap, who wants to transfer the stigma of those horrendous Motorola boxes to their own company? God Motorola can't build a good set top box for %)($!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
They make my FIOS Boxes!
lol @ item condition: --
You guys missed out on indicating the currency right. Knowing moto's real worth, methinks the figure is in Zimbabwean dollar (and not the greenback)
$10 shipping? Lolwut?