It looks as though Comcast (News - Alert) has decided to take a more hands-on approach in terms of its cable boxes as the cable service provider has today invested $150 million in cable box manufacturer Arris (News - Alert). This investment takes place about a month after Arris purchased the Motorola Home division from Google (News - Alert) for $2.35 billion.

As such, the 10.6 million shares issued to Comcast will reduce, on a share-for-share basis, the number of shares of Arris stock to be issued to Google. Furthermore, Google will be given a cash consideration of $150 million to get a reduced stake in Arris. This puts Comcast and Google at approximately 7.85 percent ownership each of the outstanding Arris shares.

"We are very pleased that Comcast has agreed to make this significant investment in ARRIS," said Bob Stanzione, chairman and CEO of ARRIS, in a statement. "We believe this investment by one of our largest customers is a strong indication of customer support for the Motorola (News - Alert) Home acquisition and its potential to accelerate innovation to the benefit of the industry and consumers."

Many are hoping that this is indeed a sign of Comcast taking a more active role in the development of cable boxes going forward, which could in turn lead to better set top boxes on the market with greater functionality. Any possible change won't be immediate, though, as the deal between Comcast and Arris is conditioned on the closing of the Motorola Home acquisition, as well as other conditions.

Earlier in January, Arris launched the Arris Market in conjunction with AppCarousel as part of the Arris Whole Home Solution Moxi User Interface experience. The MSO customizable Arris Market is based on HTML5 and presents a full screen app store that allows subscribers to use social media, play games and consume over-the-top media content in an environment designed for the television.

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