Tarari / LSI

Director, Business Development & Technical Sales — Video Products

In 2006 I was recruited by a Microsoft technology partner to lead sales engineering and evangelism for the Tarari Encoding Accelerator (TEA) — a hardware video-encoding accelerator that predated, and helped pave the way for, GPU-based video encoding. I owned partnership and channel development plus the encoding workflows and solutions built around the product.

Highlights:

Delivered a $10M online-video engagement for Netflix and co-developed the next-generation encoding accelerator later adopted to power Netflix's first online streaming platform.

Helped develop VC-1 codec encoding and delivery. Microsoft funded development of the Tarari Encoding Accelerator and named the product line OEM Gold Partner of the Year.

At NAB 2007, delivered one of the first live 1080p demonstrations at 6 Mbps using VC-1, with Tarari and Microsoft.

Built partner and channel programs with Microsoft, Rhozet (now Harmonic), Telestream, Digital Rapids, ViewCast, Thompson, Inlet, AVID, and Tandberg / Cisco.

Customers included Netflix, CBS, Canal+, Bloomberg and Entriq (CBS Digital), along with the post and media services companies encoding on their behalf — Ascent Media, Deluxe, FotoKem and Technicolor.

In 2007, LSI Logic acquired Tarari and my role shifted to Video Subject Matter Expert and internal video consultant on special projects. I led the next generation of TEA products, built the distribution network and channel program, designed new processing boards, and drove global sales and business development. Working with engineering, I adapted the Starlink DSP for video — a Cisco telepresence and unified-communications initiative tied to Cisco's Cloud Services Platform, a program that reached roughly $350M (10 deployments at ~$35M each).

Later customers: BBC, BSkyB, BT, ITV, Canal+, Cisco and Netflix. (LSI was later acquired by Avago Technologies.)