Because TiVo isn't interested, and Echostar is probably somewhat pissed about it anyway.
TiVo sees itself as the winner of a fight and as a company owed a huge payoff by Echostar who they see as dragging out a court case they feel they were in the right over.
Dish sees TiVo as a holder of trivial patents that make it impossible to implement something without TiVo's consent.
Neither side are going to want to collaborate on anything.
There's a few ways around the poison pill BTW. One is for Echostar to work with other interested parties so 51% of the shares are owned by companies who want TiVo closed down, but of which none own more than 14% of the company. That's a stretch.
Another is to challenge the poison pill in court, as they're not generally seen as 100% kosher.
And finally, they can call TiVo's bluff, buy 15% of TiVo, let it go bankrupt, and bid for the assets, which should be considerably less than $7.5B. The assumption TiVo and the author makes is that any hostile takeover would be by a company that wants TiVo in some viable state. If all you're trying to do is destroy the company, a poison pill actually works to your advantage.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
nick @ Jun 10th 2009 7:26PM
How about a collaboration? Why can't Dish just enter into an agreement to use TIVO?
squiggleslash @ Jun 10th 2009 7:37PM
Because TiVo isn't interested, and Echostar is probably somewhat pissed about it anyway.
TiVo sees itself as the winner of a fight and as a company owed a huge payoff by Echostar who they see as dragging out a court case they feel they were in the right over.
Dish sees TiVo as a holder of trivial patents that make it impossible to implement something without TiVo's consent.
Neither side are going to want to collaborate on anything.
There's a few ways around the poison pill BTW. One is for Echostar to work with other interested parties so 51% of the shares are owned by companies who want TiVo closed down, but of which none own more than 14% of the company. That's a stretch.
Another is to challenge the poison pill in court, as they're not generally seen as 100% kosher.
And finally, they can call TiVo's bluff, buy 15% of TiVo, let it go bankrupt, and bid for the assets, which should be considerably less than $7.5B. The assumption TiVo and the author makes is that any hostile takeover would be by a company that wants TiVo in some viable state. If all you're trying to do is destroy the company, a poison pill actually works to your advantage.