“Apparently, Apple has been meeting with cable TV companies recently pitching a new idea: A cable set-top box that is built or at least powered by Apple technology,” Henry Blodget writes for Yahoo Finance. “This would presumably either be sold directly, via Apple stores, and replace cable customers’ current cable boxes. Or it would be bought by the cable companies and rented to subscribers, the same way cable companies rent today’s set-top boxes.”
“It would set Apple up to gradually gain more leverage over the cable companies–until the day when Apple has enough households worldwide that it can go direct to the networks and render the cable companies dumb pipes,” Blodget writes. “All that would be excellent for Apple. And the technology could be incorporated into the Apple TV hardware (the “sheet of glass”) and help Apple sell millions more TVs.”
Blodget writes, “Of course, the cable companies aren’t stupid. They know exactly what Apple wants to do to them… In any event, there’s a lot at stake for both sides here, so these will be tense negotiations. But it might be that there’s enough ‘”win-win’ potential that deals can get done.”
Read more in the full article here.
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