Pandora and TiVo

I wish that I could get the Pandora application on my TiVo.  I’m assuming that you know what TiVo is by now.  Pandora, www.pandora.com, allows end users to create and (more importantly) train streaming internet stations so that they only play the music that you like.  I’m listening to Pandora as I write this post.  Anyhow, TiVo allows you to rate shows with a “thumbs up, thumbs down” button on the remote.  Pandora allows you to rate songs with a “thumbs up, thumbs down” control on the user interface.  If I could stream music from pandora via my Tivo, I’d use it all day long.  I think this would be a bigger win for TiVo than it would be for Pandora.

Last thought on this – TiVo used to have a relationship with MoodLogic, which would allow for the TiVo to stream autogeneretated playlists on your .mp3 collection.   This was a pretty good application that overcame a lot of the limitations of the built in .mp3 player in the TiVo – namely, that the TiVo application craps out / becomes unusable with a list of more than about 2000 .mp3’s due to memory limitations and timeout errors.  But, alas, moodlogic is defunct and I can no longer add new songs to my library and have them categorized.

I had one more thought – TiVo should reposition themselves as an application delivery platform for home entertainment and REALLY ENCOURAGE 3rd parties and hobbyists to develop applications that can be run on the TiVo.  Imagine – Flick’r or Webshots on your TiVo – for example.

Maybe the TiVo folks are listening?  Evidence suggests not.

How the desktop virtualization market is going to shake out

The desktop virtualization marketplace is going to be fought by Microsoft, Citrix, and VMWare.  There are tons of startups in the space, so maybe one of them will break out, but here’s how I envision it’s going to shake out;

VMWare is going to have the best technology.  They will be the expensive, high quality player and will be embraced by organizations that have standardized on its infrastructure for server virtualization.  Now that they’ve got a new CEO from Microsoft, they will probably learn how to put sneaky, proprietary hooks into their server code so that their desktop software performs best when you standardize on a 100% VMWare solution.

Citrix, whose battle this is to loose although i don’t think they see it this way, will be the price competitor.  Same features as vmware and microsoft, but cheaper.  To a certain extent, I think that their position in this market place is going to be the same as Linux is to Windows today – a (big) niche player that will have its afficionados, fine technology, but an inability to really break out.

Microsoft, and its desktop virtualization suite, will win using the classic Microsoft method – distribution – the offering will be ubiquitous, come bundled into the operating system(s) and be the default choice – not unlike Internet Explorer is today.  Microsoft already is using some application virtualization in Vista for non-compliant applications.  I’ve said this before – distribution channel wins the war in the end.

I’ve been watching the startups that are out there, plus seeing what Symantec (SYMC), Parallels (aka SWSoft), Sun, Quest Software, are doing.  My sense is that these players, plus the big three in this space above will set about acquiring some of these startups to assemble portfolios of offerings.

This should be a fun one to watch!

What do you think is going to happen?  Post a comment.