• GigaOM, Monday, June 20, 2011 11:30 AM

Google this weekend scooped up DVR software company SageTV for an undisclosed sum. It's only a matter of time before Google TV adds DVR functionality, right? Not quite. Rakesh Agrawal, founder of SageTV rival SnapStream Media, doesn't think native DVR capabilities jibe with Google's grant strategy. "I recently read 'In the Plex' by Steven Levy and it gives a glimpse of how Google thinks," Agrawal writes in a blog post, "and for Google, the future is all about the Internet and the cloud."

GigaOm's Janko Roettgers agrees. "Google TV is designed to work with existing DVRs, not to replace your DVR," he writes. "Sure, eventually, we may see a DVR that runs Google TV software. But adding DVR functionality to the next version of Google TV would duplicate existing functionality and make the devices even more expensive." What, then, could Google want with SageTV? "SageTV's place-shifting software, which is essentially a Slingbox for your PC or media set-top box," Roettgers explains.

"SageTV place shifting makes it possible to watch live and archived TV programming on computers either in your home network or remotely. Third-party developers have already been able to port this functionality to iOS devices, and I expect that SageTV's engineers will be working on releasing an Android client as soon as possible."

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