How Many Millions was SageTV bought for?

[joe123]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Google will bring to market now that they've acquired Sage.

What Google will bring to the table are lawsuits for anyone else now trying to re-create anything that is SageTV like or remotely similar.

With time, nobody will develop anything as good as SageTV becasue of lawsuit fears and Google will grow and grow and push down our throats inferior products costing much more.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by heatvent

Likely nothing you will be interested in.

If Google brings in SageTV-style DVR capabilities, I think it's very likely I'd be very interested. I think there's a small chance that the Google acquisition is great news for Sage users in the long run. This is the only way we ever had any chance of getting CableCard, Netflix and/or Hulu support.

[autoboy]

My guess is $10m with a range of $5m -$20m absolute max

IMO Frey was doing fine as a company. They had good leadership and were knowledgeable about their financial situation as Brent pointed out.

Companies are valued based on their current revenue and projected revenue, and then a multiple is applied to that based on the projected value the of the IP and knowledge base to Google. IMO, that IP was valuable to Google and the engineers were good so the multiple was higher than the average acquisition, but not hugely more.

My guess is Jeff took home ~$5 mil and some of his senior employees and small investors (normally family and friends in a small company like this) split the rest. After taxes $2.5m is a nice chunk of change and invested properly and saved will last him the rest of his life as a very nice income buffer. His position at Google will also pay very nicely. Will he be flying around in private jets, probably not, but his life will be very comfortable from now on.

The government will also make out like a bandit but will waste it all on a windmill that sits idle for 90% of it's life only to break 10 years later and collect rust because it's not economical to actually operate. But, that windmill sure provided good jobs to a few people for a few years until they ran out of money to operate it because it's not self sufficient...

[joe123]

Originally Posted by reggie14

If Google brings in SageTV-style DVR capabilities, I think it's very likely I'd be very interested. I think there's a small chance that the Google acquisition is great news for Sage users in the long run. This is the only way we ever had any chance of getting CableCard, Netflix and/or Hulu support.

Google has already given us a sneak preview into what they are planning and it's not a pretty picture.

SageTV extenders have been aborted from sales. Google could have easily given SageTV customers who rely on extenders another path. But they have not.

So SageTV already started decaying weeks ago when the annoucement was made and no provisions were setup for existing customers to continue with some kind of extenders.

[heatvent]

Well we can have somewhat of an idea of the high end of the limit in a couple of days Google should issue their quarterly earnings on the 14th. They issue a cash flow statement which will show cash paid for acquisitions for the quarter. They would have bought more than just Sage in the quarter but the total will be the absolute ceiling assuming they bought nothing else.

Here is an article that highlights the 11 companies Google bought to date http://searchenginewatch.com/article...st-Transaction. You can probably check through and see which of these are 2Q acquisitions. And then come to some conclusion on the possible price paid for Sage of the 2Q total paid and the other companies acquired. It should stick out if they paid $50M for Sage. If they paid $10 or less, probably harder to find. Less that $2M might show up in the total paid being low but would require some diligence on what else was bought. There could also be some contingent payments from prior acquisitions in the amount paid in the quarter.

If you are really interested, you can listen to their investor webcast at http://investor.google.com/earnings.html.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by joe123

Google has already given us a sneak preview into what they are planning and it's not a pretty picture.

My take is that Google has shown us SageTV itself is dead. Your software licenses and extender hardware will almost certainly not be useful with any Google products.

But that doesn't mean Google isn't going to take the SageTV and have them build something cool into GoogleTV.

Originally Posted by joe123

SageTV extenders have been aborted from sales. Google could have easily given SageTV customers who rely on extenders another path. But they have not.

So SageTV already started decaying weeks ago when the annoucement was made and no provisions were setup for existing customers to continue with some kind of extenders.

While I agree they could have done something different, I disagree it would have been that easy. What was Google going to do? The only easy thing they could do is re-open the store to sell more extenders. But, who knows how many SageTV had left, and Google is going to need some of those for warranty replacements. And Google has already committed to keeping the EPG data going for a year and keeping the forum open for a while.

Google almost certainly has very little interest in continuing Sage in its current form, so it seems like doing much to prolong Sage's life would be a waste of effort from Google's perspective.

[pjpjpjpj]

I feel sorry for those who need more extenders or client licenses. There's always eBay, and prices will certainly come down eventually. But for those of us with all we need right now, as I posted elsewhere, I have no doubt that this forum* will provide DIY solutions if my extender breaks at some point. It did for the HD100. I also have no doubt that this forum* will provide solutions for EPG when the contract with Zap2It ends. In fact, it already has. This forum* will also continue to provide great plug-ins thanks to the loyal devs here. Since the Google announcement, we've gotten Phoenix and ADM (both HUGE, IMO) and on the horizon is Ortus and possibly the Navi-X thing. And I'm sure a whole host of other great things that are being worked on behind the scenes. So Sage is far from dead.

*I have no doubt that if Sage stops hosting "this" forum, it will be picked up and moved elsewhere, hosted by, again, the loyal followers.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

I feel sorry for those who need more extenders or client licenses. There's always eBay, and prices will certainly come down eventually. But for those of us with all we need right now, as I posted elsewhere, I have no doubt that this forum* will provide DIY solutions if my extender breaks at some point. It did for the HD100. I also have no doubt that this forum* will provide solutions for EPG when the contract with Zap2It ends. In fact, it already has. This forum* will also continue to provide great plug-ins thanks to the loyal devs here. Since the Google announcement, we've gotten Phoenix and ADM (both HUGE, IMO) and on the horizon is Ortus and possibly the Navi-X thing. And I'm sure a whole host of other great things that are being worked on behind the scenes. So Sage is far from dead.

*I have no doubt that if Sage stops hosting "this" forum, it will be picked up and moved elsewhere, hosted by, again, the loyal followers.

Ortus will be well worth the wait. Trust me.

[sandor]

would sagetv be prior art, to protect from future lawsuits?

not sure of the PVR timeline... but something of that nature could be worth quite a bit.

[PiX64]

Late out of the gate on this one but my $.02. Is " whatever it was bought for wasn't enough!"

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by joe123

SageTV is DEAD.

Dead implies it doesn't work. I get it, you're and angry dude... I also don't care... I watched a LOT of TV yesterday, as I have for the last month... Never once did anything pop up on my screen indicating I had been screwed in any way. In fact, there are very likely MANY users of sage that don't even know about the buyout yet, and are perfectly happy using their 'DEAD' systems.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by heatvent

Likely nothing you will be interested in.

A year or so down the line when my current setup will probably need upgrading I'll see what's out there. Maybe the Google solution will be the best, maybe not. At this point I'm agnostic about what product will be the best for me a year from now. I hope it's the Google solution but if it's not life goes on.

I don't really understand all the gnashing of teeth going on. Sage got bought, life goes on. Jeff has spent YEARS of his life working on Sage and probably not making much money along the way. I hope he made out well in the acquisition, it was earned. Personally I don't feel betrayed or "screwed". Start ups like Sage get bought or they go out of business, I'm glad it wasn't the latter.

[heatvent]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

A year or so down the line when my current setup will probably need upgrading I'll see what's out there. Maybe the Google solution will be the best, maybe not. At this point I'm agnostic about what product will be the best for me a year from now. I hope it's the Google solution but if it's not life goes on.

I don't really understand all the gnashing of teeth going on. Sage got bought, life goes on. Jeff has spent YEARS of his life working on Sage and probably not making much money along the way. I hope he made out well in the acquisition, it was earned. Personally I don't feel betrayed or "screwed". Start ups like Sage get bought or they go out of business, I'm glad it wasn't the latter.

I wasn't gritting my teeth, I am just in the camp of whatever Google is cooking up is likely not a hobbyist PVR solution. If I had to guess, android will be in your TV and everything will be served up internet style. Google will advertise, sell apps, and continue to slowly take over the world to the dismay of Microsoft and others. Apple will come out with it's own TV that some will jailbreak and will look cool but will be too expensive for most of us. In other words the TV landscape is changing. SageTV might be obsolete in a few years as everything you wanted is now there (shows on demand, online content, games, etc.).

Jeff hanging on trying to grow out of the HTPC market wasn't going to last forever. He would get swallowed up by competition as these multi-billion $ companies are focusing on products that diminish the value of SageTV.

[jsonnabend]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Dead implies it doesn't work. I get it, you're and angry dude... I also don't care... I watched a LOT of TV yesterday, as I have for the last month... Never once did anything pop up on my screen indicating I had been screwed in any way. In fact, there are very likely MANY users of sage that don't even know about the buyout yet, and are perfectly happy using their 'DEAD' systems.

Well, that all depends on how you define "dead". You're playing semantics, my brother. SageTV is "dead" in that (a) it is no longer being actively developed, and (b) no further licenses are available

That second item is a biggy for me because I was just about to add two TV's to my house. How is SageTV alive and well for me?

- Jeff

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by heatvent

I wasn't gritting my teeth, I am just in the camp of whatever Google is cooking up is likely not a hobbyist PVR solution. If I had to guess, android will be in your TV and everything will be served up internet style. Google will advertise, sell apps, and continue to slowly take over the world to the dismay of Microsoft and others.

Out of curiosity, why do you think Google bought Sage?

[heatvent]

I posted my thoughts somewhere but these threads are going nuts so I don't recall where. Basically I think they needed streaming/placeshifting technology. I think a PVR has been done but maybe Jeff knowing the market was a plus. If they just wanted Jeff and/or his team, they would have just hired them. They wanted to own the SageTV technology/know how so nobody else could so they bought the company and entered Jeff into an employment/non-compete. Jeff made a living on walking the thin line between copyright infringement and recording free tv/media for temporary playback. DRM has been more than once mentioned as a downfall to MCE or other players. In the process, he developed some nice streaming technology (although not sure why the youtube people would have a few experts walking around). I also think that for Google, they bought out a private company and probably got the technology/people at a reasonable price. I know people think that Jeff made gazillions off the deal but I think it is highly doubtful. For gazillions, Google could have developed whatever technology they needed.

[SHS]

We look forward to joining Google, and while we dont have anything specific to announce at this time, we encourage interested developers to email sagetv-dev@google.com.

If SageTV is so dead then why would Jeff say this above if something else wasn't in pipe line even know it maybe a becoming Google Product that fine after all he is encourage interested developers email them as in plugin, customization developers.

As for geektonic comment about Media Center
This why it fail becuases it start out OEM only at the time that was bad move from start then Vista come out which was so bad and buggee that didn't helps matter so by time Windows 7 got out well it just was just a bit to late for MS Media Center also not count the CableCards and SatelliteCards got caned and DRM didn't help matter and lack of any Extender and no PC Client not all other thing that sagetv that MCE didn't what so ever so by that time SageTV was so far ahead there was no way MS could ever win this battle.
As for BeyondTV they just Lacking focusing on becoming a ture integrated to be coming HTPC media center after all Beyond Media wasn't going cut it and best product they ever come out was Firefly Remote Control and then there the lack of supporting extender which did help even know they said it couldn't be done under dot.net boy sub "GB-PVR" prove them wrong .

[panteragstk]

The simple fact most seem to be forgetting is this: We don't know anything. That's it. No matter how right you think you are you don't know anything for sure about what is going to happen/how much was paid or anything else. The sagetv store could reopen tomorrow and start as if this never happened, it could never open again. The forums could shut down tomorrow, or they could stay up for the next 10 years. We don't know, and we won't know until Jeff or someone else at google tells us. Simple as that.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by autoboy

The government will also make out like a bandit but will waste it all on a windmill that sits idle for 90% of it's life only to break 10 years later and collect rust because it's not economical to actually operate.

*cough* LFTR *cough*

Originally Posted by panteragstk

The simple fact most seem to be forgetting is this: We don't know anything. That's it.

It's not completely accurate to say "We don't know anything". We do know some things about the acquisition. For example, we know there was an acquisition, and sales of SageTV products stopped as a result. We know Jeff is happy about the acquisition.

The problem is, we don't know enough to paint an accurate picture of what's to come -- but that certainly won't stop everyone from trying.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by brainbone

*cough* LFTR *cough*



It's not completely accurate to say "We don't know anything". We do know some things about the acquisition. For example, we know there was an acquisition, and sales of SageTV products stopped as a result. We know Jeff is happy about the acquisition.

The problem is, we don't know enough to paint an accurate picture of what's to come -- but that certainly won't stop everyone from trying.

True. I should have said "we know nothing other than what we've been told."

I know it won't stop people from speculating, but what is annoying to me is the ones that are acting like their speculation is fact. There is nothing wrong with people sharing their opinion about what may be going on or what will happen, but when they state that opinion like it is a fact and nobody else is right, then we have a problem.