HBO CTO Otto Berkes gives up Position after Outsourcing of Streaming Technology

HBO’s CTO Otto Berkes has given up his position after the company began the outsourcing of its streaming technology. This was bound to happen.

The CTO of HBO is out of the picture. The company will be sending out feelers for business elsewhere by lending its streaming technology. The time period set for this move is the year 2015. A plan has been scrapped according to which the streaming service would have been an internal matter.

Titled “Maui” the project is up in the air for now. Instead of constructing the whole shebang internally, the situation will be handled on an external basis with a little help from MLB Advanced.

MLB has been doing this job previously but now it has bagged its largest customer in the form of HBO. Whether this will spell a new lease of life for HBO Go, the streaming service of HBO, is another matter altogether. What HBO intends to do is to float the new streaming service in April of next year in conjunction with The Game of Thrones premiere. 

This move to an outer channel by HBO is quite a shock for the reputation of the CTO of the company. Otto Berkes joined the company two years ago and brought in tow many of his partners from Microsoft. His setting up of a large office in Seattle had been the source of much internal unrest and bickering.

Th $100 million worth of costs incurred annually thanks to his harebrained schemes had left HBO virtually the shadow of the firm it used to be. Many inside sources had labelled Berkes’ machinations as being all about building a behemoth of nepotism.

The environment of hypocrisy and negativity that had been engendered thanks in no small part to Berkes’ influence had been pernicious to the image and coffers of the company. The change had been stressful in the least and not entirely good in its effects.

There were other sources of worry and apprehension. A memory leak had been ignored as a non-issue by Berkes awhile ago and that had harmed the company. There was talk of Berkes having done nothing for the organization. He was a live wire but trouble as well.

Besides there were a lot of internal complaints against Berkes. His leaving HBO is probably good riddance to bad rubbish. And the Maui project will most likely benefit HBO immensely in the future.       

Source: Fortune