September 26, 2008

Green(er) Pastures: CableLabs CEO Green to Leave in '09

As soon as CableLabs announced that pres/CEO Dick Green would retire in Dec '09 when his contract expires, tongues started clacking about who might replace the well-respected technologist. The board's got plenty of time to home in on a candidate. Green has been with the research and development consortium for 20 years, serving as its first and only CEO. Next month, he will be inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame in Denver. We sat down with him recently, before his retirement announcement, and asked him to reflect on his life in cable. So, it's about time you got inducted into the Hall of Fame. I was really surprised, and it's quite an honor. Considering the technology revolution taking place in cable, do you think we'll see more technologists as inductees? I think the Hall of Fame ought to be strictly merit. So I don't think there should be a specific formula. But it's very heartening to see the technical side being recognized in the last few years. What are the biggest tech issues the industry faces in 2009? '09 is about execution... getting DOCSIS 3.0 deployed and using the tru2way platform to encourage innovation and development to push the industry ahead competitively. Isn't it unusual to have so many cable tech initiatives converging all at once? There are dynamics going on now that we haven't seen before. Certainly on that list of things is competition. Telephone companies doing video and competing is a really important development, which has to be addressed in the competitive marketplace. I think it was just by accident that DOCSIS 3.0 came out just at the same time that tru2way did. We didn't plan it that way. But it came out of the chute at the same time, which puts extra pressure on MSOs to deploy and execute on it. That was an unusual situation. But it's the pressures of competition and a changing market. People are watching television differently, and we need to address that. The rate of change is much accelerated over what it was 5 years ago. More from the interview on Cable360.net.