Paul Allen-back interactive TV products and services company, Digeo, has appointed former Sony executive, Mike Fidler, as CEO, effective immediately. He replaces interim CEO, Chris Purcell, who took on that roll after Jim Billmaier stepped down as CEO last April (see [itvt] Issue 5.99 Part 1); Purcell will retain a seat on the company's board. Fidler was most recently SVP of Sony Electroncs' Home Products Division, its largest business group, where he was responsible for marketing television sets, home audio/video products, and IT and professional displays, with a specific focus on HDTV and set-top boxes. According to Digeo, his most significant accomplishments include orchestrating Sony's launch of DVD, leading the team responsible for Sony's TiVo partnership and helping launch TiVo in the US, promoting and gaining broad industry support for the Blu-ray Disc format, and directing Sony's design and engineering group for set-top boxes. He is one of the founders and vice presidents of the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry-funded non-profit, and has served on various Consumer Electronics Association committees. Prior to his stint at Sony, Fidler served as an SVP at Pioneer Electronics. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing from Pace University, New York. "I am very pleased Mike Fidler is joining Digeo as its new CEO," Paul Allen, who serves as the company's chairman, said in a prepared statement. "Mike will accelerate Digeo's efforts to capitalize on the growing market for media centers and continue the development of Digeo's market-leading technology. Mike has a proven track record of bringing innovative products like these to market. In addition, he has a wealth of experience building industry partnerships that will be crucial to the success of Digeo within the industry. I'm pleased to have Mike on board--he is an exceptional leader and brings the depth of experience Digeo needs as it enters a period of rapid growth and broad impact."
Digeo is best known for its Linux-based Moxi platform (customers include Adelphia, Charter, Comcast, BendBroadband, Sunflower Broadband and New Wave Broadband), which it offers as a licensable reference design, and which allows end-users to store, access and manage a variety of entertainment content, including digitally recorded TV programming, music, photos, games, and VOD titles, through a single, unified menu. The platform is notable for its interface, which has won an Emmy award, and which replaces the standard "spreadsheet" EPG interface with a so-called "cross-hairs" configuration consisting of two intersecting animated lines at right angles to each other: customers use the left and right arrow keys on their remote control to scroll through a series of options on the horizontal line--e.g. Channels, Recorded TV, Find & Record, On Demand, Pay per View, Settings, etc.; they then use the remote's up and down arrow keys to scroll through the sub-listings of the currently highlighted option, which appear as a vertical line intersecting the line of options. Digeo claims that up to 5,000 Moxi Media Centers are now shipping each week.
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