Smith Barney said a buyout of TiVo by Apple was contradictory to comments from Apple management and said “we strongly believe Apple has no interest in acquiring TiVo.” The research firm said: “Based on Apple’s commentary, we believe a deal is highly unlikely. Specifically, Apple had two points that lead us to discount the current reports. First, it appears as though Apple wants to stay focused on selling select proven products (e.g. iPod) rather than gambling on unknown initiatives. Second, Apple indicated that the DVR market seems to be a commodity whereby all players will eventually have similar hardware and software longer term, which means that the DVR market really boils down to marketing and branding. Apple clearly already has a strong brand and would not gain much from acquiring TiVo. If Apple were to get into the DVR market, we believe they would build a proprietary product.”.