Title: Executive vice president of products for ReplayTV.
Background: Prior to joining ReplayTV in February 2000, Mr. Hastings was director of engineering at Acuson.
On being acquired by SONICblue: “They were looking at making SONICblue a digital entertainment company for consumers. They had lots of money, they had great audio assets with the Rio brand [of MP3 players]. They were really looking to move into the video domain. So that’s how we got hooked up with them. They were looking for video technologies; we’ve got great video technologies … We’re going to be continuing the Rio brand of products dedicated to audio, we’re going to be working on new products in the video space, and we’re also going to look at combination devices-bringing the MP3 device together with the DVR products in a home entertainment-type system.”
On ReplayTV’s current projects: “We’ve basically got two different businesses [licensing and products]. We’ve been really focused on our licensing business since November, when we did the reorganization. We have one announced major licensee, which is Motorola.
“They are building next-generation set-top boxes that have hard disks in them. So the deal we have with them is that in the future all of their hard-disk-based cable set-top boxes will include our software, which is a huge deal for us. First, in proving the licensing model. A lot of people said, `Who’s ever going to buy the software? There’s lots of sources of it. You’re not going to make any money on it.’ Second, it was acknowledgment from what is considered one of the leading technology players in the cable industry that they license significant portions of software and that our software was the best they could find.
“On the product side of the business, we are looking at plans to produce another DVR. We’re talking to Panasonic about that, we’re talking with SONICblue under their brand. We don’t have any firm plans on it yet, but we’re working through that now. We’ve got our engineering team working on new, advanced features that would go in that type of product.”