Stuart Corner
Monday, 25 February 2008 10:02
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
The big turnaround,
as previously announced was Engin's abandonment of its plan to be the exclusive Australian provider of the TiVo personal video recorder to which its largest shareholder, Seven, has the exclusive Australian rights.
In his letter, Smith said: "Engin had previously embarked on an aggressive 'triple play' growth strategy aimed at successfully growing the subscriber base while expanding the strategic direction with broadband and TiVo. The board and management considered both the company's ability to execute this strategy as well as the associated risks...The investment to date in TiVo has not been significant. However, the next stage of TiVo would have seen the company commit to several million dollars had it proceeded."
Smith said that Engin had "successfully negotiated a termination of this agreement and is in the process of finalising an arrangement that will enable Engin to sell TiVo to its large customer base without taking on the very significant financial and inventory liabilities and risks associated with being an exclusive distributor." He added that "the company has acted to maintain a component of a triple play strategy," but did not elaborate on what this entailed.
Engin
announced in June 2007 that it was aiming to become a leading provider of triple play services by signing up as a primary distributor of the TiVo and becoming a reseller of Optus ADSL2+ services.
Under that plan, Engin would have taken on the mass retail distribution of TiVo through its current reseller relationships and by expanding these it would also have been responsible for coordinating product development and marketing of the TiVo brand, managing the TiVo website and undertaking direct sales. The TiVo service was touted as combining free-to-air broadcast content with the TiVo service, including SeasonPass recording and WishList searches.
