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Microsoft steps in to help its pal AT&T
IN A SURPRISING MOVE, Microsoft has intervened in the legal row between Tivo and AT&T and is suing the TV box maker for nicking its ideas.
Tivo sued AT&T claiming the telco pinched some its "time-warping" technology for use in its digital video recorders in its U-Verse TV service. TiVo is also involved in similar spats with Verizon, the Dish Network and EchoStar.
However AT&T has a bigger mate that it has called in to give Tivo a knocking about that it perhaps was not expecting. U-Verse uses Microsoft technology for video delivery and digital recording, so it has stepped in.
The Vole says it hasn't really got a beef with Tivo, but it has decided to wade in to defend its business partner AT&T.
It is hard to see who the good guy is here. Tivo is suing AT&T for using the Vole's software, Microsoft Mediaroom. Why it did not sue Microsoft is anyone's guess, but perhaps it knew that Microsoft does not fight fair.
Microsoft really had to step in because if AT&T got a good kicking by the courts it would demand that the Vole pay any damages awarded or sue it for writing dodgy software.
So it seems that the Vole is not wading in just to protect a good and loyal customer. It is fighting AT&T's corner because it has to.
The Vole has asked the the court to let it intervene, saying that if it fails to do so, it risks "damage to Microsoft's relationship with AT&T and its subsidiaries."
Groklaw thinks that if TiVo is willing to state on the record that it is not aiming its patent row at Microsoft Mediaroom then the Vole can walk away from the case.
It seems that this is the way that Tivo wants to play it. In its official statement about Microsoft's involvement, it says that AT&T products and services it targeted in its lawsuit have nothing to do with the Vole.
But Microsoft said it wishes to "exonerate its implicated software once and for all", because otherwise there will be "a cloud of uncertainty and threatened litigation will continue to disrupt its business and its customer relationships."
So in other words the fight will go on if the courts will let it. µ
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Forst of all, people are paying to listen to the radio (XM and Sirius) so why is it a suprise TiVo's model works?
Second, if someone gets a DVR through a cable TV or a Satellite network they have to pay monthly for it, same as TiVo.
Third, you can use a computer as a DVR, but then it really wasn't free, was it? Add in the extra electricity a computer sucks up vs a DVR, your time to get the thing working, and the fact that you can't really do much with the computer when you're watching the telly, and home made DVRs are just another computer hobby that doesn't make as much sense as people claim - but they are great for people who think it's fun to build DVRs. Maybe if a few computer geeks thought it was fun to build a swingset at the park, we could have a better world instead of another couch potatoe.
... not suck it out.
Re:"It is hard to see who the good guy is here,"
They're all corporations; there are no good guys.
Really? Get over it seriously moronic comments like that are from the Windows 98/ME days. You have a choice if you dont like it go run OSX or Linux and quit your Wha Wha talk.
Tivo SUCKS anyways. I don't see how they can possibly get away with their business model - CHARGING people a MONTHLY FEE to use a DVR? Seriously?
Fuck Tivo.
Unless you meant moronic software FOR buggies as in "horse and buggy".
And one *cannot* get over what M$ does, because they do it to you *every* day, in every way that they can come up with.
Microsoft Ultimate TV was far better than Tivo. It was much faster, didnt require the phone line, better visual indicators in the guide on what would record, had better search and record options, etc etc etc. Tivo was just better marketed and became a household name. Both were very good Ultimate TV was just that much better. Ultimate TV really had one click record while Tivo claimed one click but also had you confirm your click.
The article would have been pretty informative had it not been for the moronic buggy software comment. Isn't it time you got over whatever Microsoft did to you?