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; earned Microsoft's 2006 OEM Gold Partner of the Year award.

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

Customers included Netflix, Ascent Media, Deluxe, CBS, Canal+, Bloomberg, and Entriq (CBS Digital).

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 that grew into roughly $350M (10 deployments at ~$35M each).

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